THE COLONSAY CATECHISTweb · his religious allegiance. The Rev. Robert Duncanson, minister of the...

THE COLONSAY CATECHIST

JAMES MOORE, CATECHIST AT COLONSAY 1728-36

by

Dr. Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart

Dedicated by the author to

Mrs Flora MacNeill and the children of Colonsay School

This work was originally published as a serialised article in “The Corncrake”,

the on-line magazine of the Island of Colonsay

THE COLONSAY CATECHIST - JAMES MOORE, CATECHIST AT COLONSAY 1728-36

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Foreword 3

PART 1 Colonsay 1677 – 1728 4

PART 2 – The Royal Bounty (1) i The Royal Bounty 10

ii The political background 13

PART 3 – The Royal Bounty (2) iii The Church of Scotland 17

PART 4 – The founding of the Royal Bounty Grant

Introduction 22

The Atterbury plot and its aftermath 22

The General Assembly of 1723 and its plans 23

The General Assembly of 1724 – old plans realized and new plans in view 24

The government listens 26

General Wade’s mission 27

The General Assembly of 1725 – granting the Royal Bounty 28

PART 5 – First attempts to administer the Royal Bounty 1725: too much, too soon 31

Local problems 35

The Royal Bounty Committee & the SSPCK 38

PART 6 – The Royal Bounty 1726 – 1728 Trouble on the horizon 41

PART 7 – Crisis & co-operation, the Royal Bounty 1728 – 1729 A partnership with the SSPCK? 47

Double-dealing by the Synod of Glenelg 49

A solution to the crisis? 51

Conclusion 52

PART 8 A Schoolteacher in Colonsay 53

The report of 1724 54

The report of 1726 56

A catechist for Colonsay at last 58

PART 9 Supervising the catechists 60

Communication problems 61

A new catechist for Colonsay 62

Problems with the pay rise 64

The presbytery has to come clean 65

The committee take their revenge 66

PART 10 Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay 67

MacNeill’s attempt to save Moore’s salary 67

PART 11 Daniel Campbell of Shawfield 71

A new attempt to split the parish 72

A new landlord for Jura 73

The death of the catechist 73


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FOREWORD

I would like to thank the staff of Edinburgh University Library, the National Library

of Scotland, and above all the National Archives of Scotland for all the help and

patience they showed to me during my research. This article could not have been

written without the groundwork laid down in two masterly and exceptionally

important local history books: De Vere Loder’s classic “Colonsay and Oronsay in the

Isles of Argyll: their history, flora, fauna and topography” (Edinburgh, 1935:

reprinted Colonsay, 1995), and the new study by Peter Youngson, “Jura: Island of

Deer” (Edinburgh, 2000). I apologize for including footnotes, and ask the reader’s

indulgence and forbearance: I hope that they show just how rich and varied are the

archival sources for the study of Colonsay during this fascinating period. Unless

indicated otherwise, all manuscript references are to the National Archives of

Scotland in Edinburgh.

A few definitions may be of help for overseas readers who might be unfamiliar with

the workings of the presbyterian Church of Scotland. In the church hierarchy, a

presbytery is the court above the kirk session, where each parish in the presbyterial

bounds is represented by its minister and an elder; it usually meets once a month. A

synod is the next step up, a (generally) annual court made up of all members of the

constituent presbyteries. The General Assembly is the supreme court of the Church of

Scotland, composed of commissioners (ministers and elders) appointed by all the

presbyteries in the country; it meets each May in Edinburgh. Heritors are the parish

landowners responsible for the upkeep of the local church and the supplying of a

manse and glebe for the local minister.

Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart


4

THE COLONSAY CATECHIST: Part 1

Having recently spent a most enjoyable few days organising a small Gaelic féis with

the children at Kilchattan School, I thought that Colbhasaich at home and away might

be interested in a little study of the first schoolteachers and catechists we know about

in any detail who taught in Colonsay. These were James Moore (whose surname

generally appears in contemporary documents, though not in his own signature, as

"Muir") who taught from 1728 – at least – until 1736; and his successor, and indeed

briefly his predecessor, Donald MacLean. Although I had intended at first just to

present a mere list of names and a couple of letters, I soon found that there was a great

deal of information hidden away in the archives about both these men, information

which might be of some interest to the people of Colonsay, and maybe even of some

use in contributing to the history of the island and perhaps further afield.

Through looking at the vagaries of the catechists’ careers – and their careers were

nothing if not volatile – I hope that we might come to a better understanding not only

of the different pressures and interests which affected and shaped the history of

Colonsay during the eighteenth century, but also of the two bodies which funded these

schoolmasters: the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, known

as the SSPCK; and the Royal Bounty Committee. The papers of these two rather

amorphous organisations, especially those of the latter, form a largely unindexed

treasure trove for the historian of the early modern Gàidhealtachd. Owing perhaps

primarily to the basic difficulty of retrieving the documents from storage for research,

studies of these exceptionally important organisations are few and far between. What

studies have been written are generally made from the top down. Maybe greater

attention has been paid to "mission statements" and policies than to how these

organisations actually functioned.

However, through studying how the SSPCK and the Royal Bounty Committee funded

and administered the post of catechist-schoolmaster in a small and, even then,

relatively remote island such as Colonsay, I hope that we might come to a better

understanding of how they operated "on the ground". Of course, as far as the ministers

meeting at Edinburgh were concerned, Colonsay was not high on the list of areas

which needed urgent assistance: there were no Catholics on the island, certainly no

missionary priests, nor was it a hotbed of jacobitism. We cannot make any claims that

the experience of the Colonsay catechists was at all typical of their colleagues

elsewhere. In the correspondence and committee minutes which relate to them,

however, we can see clearly how supposedly clearly delineated, closely regulated

methods of management and supervision were altered and at times thwarted by the

various tensions, suspicions and basic misunderstandings which constantly coloured

relations between centre and periphery.

In order better to understand the experiences of the first catechist in Colonsay, it

might be helpful to take a look at the background, both local and national, to his story.

With regard to the national context, we will briefly examine the origins of the Royal

Bounty scheme which organised and financed the nationwide, and indeed

subsequently international, teaching programme James Moore was involved in. First

of all, however, I should like to consider the character of the Rev. Neill Campbell


5

(1677-1757), the minister of Jura and Colonsay in the first half of the eighteenth

century, and the problems he faced in administering his vast and scattered parish.

The Rev. John MacSween, the previous minister of the parish, had enjoyed somewhat

fraught relations with the his colleagues in the Presbytery of Kintyre, as suggested by

the name under which he is recorded, perhaps rather tongue in cheek, in their minutes:

"McSwine". MacSween not only remained an episcopalian after the introduction of

presbyterianism to the Church of Scotland in 1690, he also remained in possession of

his parish. This stubbornness, as well as the fact that MacSween appears by repute to

have been an accomplished drinker, may go some way to explain the presbytery’s

consistent hostility to him. We should also note just how zealously presbyterian, and

indeed fervently anti-episcopalian, some members of the Presbytery of Kintyre were.

The father of the Rev. David Simson, minister of Kilarrow and Kilchoman, had been

minister of Southend, but was now in exile over the ocean in New Jersey because of

his religious allegiance. The Rev. Robert Duncanson, minister of the Highland Kirk in

Campbeltown, who died in February 1697, had been ordained as a member of the

earlier presbyterian Synod of Argyll during the Cromwellian era. Imprisoned in 1685

because of his presbyterian faith, he was later described by the Rev. Robert Wodrow

as "a man of rare gifts and parts and a Malleus episcopalium."1 We should also

remember that the majority of the Lowlanders who had been involved in the Kintyre

plantation in the second half of the seventeenth century came from staunch Ayrshire

covenanting stock.2 Just a few years before, in May 1685, a great number of these

presbyterian Lowland colonists had risen up with Archibald Campbell, ninth earl of

Argyll, their erstwhile patron and benefactor, as part of his ill-fated rebellion against

James VII; after its collapse, many of them had been deported overseas, mostly to the

Jamaican plantations.3 The campaign to depose the recalcitrant episcopal minister of

Jura was thus also a chance to settle some old scores.

John MacSween appeared before a meeting of the presbytery appointed by the Synod

of Argyll in November 1697, a show trial at which he was presented with a lengthy

list alleging consistent negligence of duty. MacSween denied the charges, but

nevertheless was suspended from office at the next meeting of the Synod of Argyll.

Rather to his credit, MacSween ignored all charges and carried on at his post. It would

be a full six years before the presbytery deposed him, in February 1703.4

Two months later, the young Neill Campbell was appointed as MacSween’s

replacement. This was largely thanks to the efforts of John Campbell of Sannaig,

baillie of Jura, who represented to the Presbytery of Kintyre on 26 June 1704 "that he

hes been at no smal exspenses in attending sundry of the presbytries and synods in

pursuance of several Calls to probationers in order to get a minister settled in the Isles

of Jura and Colonsa particularly Mr Neill Campbel their present Minister of which

exspenses he had not been hitherto reimbursed by the other heritors concerned in the

said Isles tho he acted by their Commission."5 Donald MacNeill of Crear and his son

Malcolm, who had just acquired the island of Colonsay, were present at the same

1 Fasti iv, 49, 66, 73. 2 Andrew McKerral, Kintyre in the seventeenth century (Edinburgh, 1948), 80-109.

3 Paul Hopkins, Glencoe and the end of the Highland war (Edinburgh, 1998), 95-103.

4 Loder, Colonsay, 150 – 1; Youngson, Jura, 183 – 95; cf. also CH2/557/3, 160, 187, 206; /4, 5, 82

5 CH2/1153/1 fo.158v.


6

meeting, and voiced the same complaint. It was hardly an auspicious beginning to

Campbell’s career.

It was not long before further problems arose. Traditionally the minister of Jura and

Colonsay had the island of Oronsay as a glebe. Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay

refused to give Campbell the farm unless the baillie of Jura contributed as well. At a

meeting the following year, on 30 July 1705, the two heritors fell out with each other.6

The presbytery continued to attempt to hammer out terms with the heritors, but no

manse, glebe or indeed increase of stipend was forthcoming. The most the local

landowners would allow Campbell was free transport between the many islands in his

new parish. But even this promise does not appear to have been honoured. For the

next four years Neill Campbell complained to the presbytery that he was unable to

obtain a parish glebe. In September 1707, evidently fed up with the stalemate, the

minister requested a transfer to another parish. The fact that he was shortly to marry

Florence, daughter of Donald MacNeill of Tarbet on the island of Gigha, may have

contributed to his eagerness to leave for a more lucrative position. Indeed, Campbell

could not even guarantee a jointure for his new wife; that had to be done on his behalf

by his brother Patrick and a friend. In fact, it would be another forty three years before

Neill Campbell demitted his charge.7

Campbell’s difficulties were not just due to the heritors’ reluctance to finance his

ministry. There may have been deeper hostility towards him from the people, if not

from the heritors themselves, as a presbyterian and thus the representative of an alien

and still unpopular denomination. In addition, he was the replacement for the

disgraced John MacSween, who, as we have seen, may have been more popular in the

parish than the allegations worked up against him by the Presbytery of Kintyre might

otherwise suggest; indeed, he was still living on the island in 1706.8 It is noteworthy

that Neill Campbell nominated John Campbell, baillie of Jura as his accompanying

elder to the Synod of Argyll in 1711 and 1712, while the Duncan MacKellar

nominated in 1716 would appear to be the same as the only Jura man called to witness

against MacSween in 1697.9 In passing, we might note that MacSween’s daughter

was married to Archibald Campbell, second son of Duncan Campbell of Sannaig,

previous baillie of Jura, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that her father once in

prayer "did Imprecat destruction on the Ballie of Jura his famely and Children".10

As will be seen later in the article, even after a generation the Rev. Neill Campbell

had made little progress with his parishioners. Certainly they would have little interest

in having to submit their problems to outside decisions. Martin Martin’s account of

Colonsay, probably compiled as a result of a visit at the very end of the seventeenth

century, mentions the women of the island still keeping the feast of the Blessed

Virgin, and relates an instance of the bible being used as a healing charm. This rather

suggests that the people there, if not in Jura, remained strongly wedded to popular

6 CH2/1153/1 fos. 167r.-v.

7 Loder, Colonsay, 151-2; Youngson, Jura, 196-9; Henry Paton (ed.), The Clan Campbell: abstracts of

entries relating to Campbells in the Sheriff Court Books of Argyll at Inveraray (Edinburgh, 1913), 132-

3, 147. 8 Youngson, summing up MacSween’s character, has “a suspicion that he may well have been a most

likeable rascal”: Jura 195; also 248 9 CH2/557/5, 117, 129, 186, 314; CH2/1153/1 fo.72; also 167v.

10 CH2/1153/1 fo.72; Youngson, Jura, 194


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rites and beliefs which may have been reinforced by the teachings of the Franciscan

missionaries who ministered to the Colbhasaich as far back as the 1620s.11

As we

shall see, in 1727 Campbell, explaining why he had never administered communion to

his parishioners, replied that "He was discouraged from attempting such a work in

regard he found little appearance of the reality of Religion amongst them".12

What the

people of the parish did expect from their clergyman was that he baptise their

children, and this, of course, he appears to have done conscientiously, although it is

most unfortunate for later Colbhasaich genealogists that it is only the Jura records

which have survived.13

Campbell does seem to have had a brief moment of success at the beginning of 1712.

It is clear that, doubtless with the support of sympathetic ministers and other

landowners, he had taken the heritors of the parish to court. In fact, he had dragged

the case through the Commissary Court of the Isles, then down to the Court of Session

in Edinburgh. At Edinburgh on 11 January 1712 Donald MacLean of Tarbert in Jura

promised to pay the minister his share of the money owed for the parish manse and

glebe, as well as compensation for the expenses of the case.14

Neill Campbell was not

picking on MacLean because he was the smallest and thus the least powerful

landowner in the parish. Donald MacLean had just inherited the estate of Torloisk

after the death of his cousin Alexander, a captain in the Scots Guards who had been

mortally wounded at the battle of Brihuega in Spain on 9 December 1710. With his

new estate in north-west Mull, Tarbert was now in a position to pay his dues, and it

was surely expected that the other heritors would follow suit. Sophisticated and

cultured, hereditary tutors to the family of their chiefs, the MacLeans of Duart, the

MacLeans of Torloisk are an exceptionally important family in the history of Mull.

Donald MacLean of Tarbert, a man "noted for his kindness and refinement of

manners", will appear again later in this article.15

While the minister and Donald MacLean hammered out an agreement in Edinburgh, it

seems that John Campbell of Sannaig, the baillie of Jura, had in fact paid the entire

expenses due to Neill Campbell on behalf of the other heritors. A letter of 22 January

to Campbell of Sannaig from Murdoch MacLaine of Lochbuie, at that time the owner

of the Ardlussa estate in the north of Jura, thanks him for the trouble he has taken,

promises to reimburse him for his pains, and also alludes to a planned meeting of

himself, the baillie, Tarbert and Archibald Campbell of Crackaig at Kinuachdrach at

the very northern tip of Jura. Rather ominously, Lochbuie promises that he will do his

utmost "to defend ous in time coming in just proportion".16

Despite his little victory,

then, Campbell’s problems with his refractory heritors appear to have continued

unabated.

11

Martin Martin, A description of the Western Isles of Scotland (London, 1703), 246-9; Cathaldus

Giblin, Irish Franciscan mission to Scotland 1619-1646 (Dublin, 1964), 24, 34-5, 41-4, 53, 61-2, 81,

121, 122, 124, 125, 131, 137, 149; Kevin Byrne, Colkitto!: A celebration of Clan Donald of Colonsay

(1570-1647) (Colonsay, 1997), 105-10, 217-24. 12

CH2/1153/3, 59 13 Youngson, Jura, 237-53. 14

CS271/22, 801 15

Alexander Maclean Sinclair, The Clan Gillean (Charlottetown, 1892), 459-60; Jo Currie, Mull: an

island and its people (Edinburgh, 2000), 145, 173, 443. 16 GD64/1/131


8

Loder makes much of the difficulties faced by Campbell in his struggle against both

the local landowners and indeed the unforgiving geography of his parish: "such were

the difficulties with which he had to contend that, combined with indifferent health,

they caused him to lapse into cantankerous negligence long before the end of his

time."17

Youngson, in his book on Jura, comes to much the same conclusion.

Contemporaries, however, may have been more sympathetic, while fully recognising

his unfitness for his post. The Rev. James Boes or Bowes of the Lowland Charge in

Campbeltown, writing in June 1729 to Nicol Spence, agent of the Church of Scotland,

describes John Campbell, the minister of Kilcalmonell in north Kintyre as "an utter

Invalid, both in body & mind", and goes on to say that "Jura [is] little better, tho

otherwise a worthy man".18

But it seems that within a few years of taking up his

parish Campbell’s spirit was broken. He averaged barely one attendance every two

years at the monthly presbytery meetings, excusing himself both because of the bad

weather and his own chronic bad health.19

In terms of comparative attendance, Neill Campbell was more assiduous visiting the

yearly meetings of the Synod of Argyll at Inveraray. Indeed, his habit was to attend

meetings of the Presbytery of Kintyre not in Campbeltown, but rather when his

colleagues were present at the gathering of the entire synod. Obviously, the burgh was

a place where the minister could transact business and meet with old friends. Synod

records, however, also suggest that Campbell had more allies there than at the

presbytery meetings in Campbeltown, fellow ministers who could better appreciate

the burdens he laboured under in trying to supervise the different islands which made

up his scattered parish. It was through the synod, at the urging of the heritor Malcolm

MacNeill of Taynish, that the island of Gigha was eventually legally separated from

Campbell’s parish (although in fact it had been administered from the parish of

Killean since 1698). We should of course note once again that Neill Campbell’s wife

Florence was the daughter of Donald MacNeill of Tarbet on that island.20

It was through the synod also that Neill Campbell mooted a radical new proposal in

August 1716. Together with another Rev. John Campbell, this time the minister of

Killarrow in Islay and thus the closest neighbouring clergyman, he suggested that the

parish of Jura and Colonsay might be split in two. Although it is not actually stated, it

is obvious that he meant that the two islands should be erected into two separate

parishes. The proposal would be partly paid for, according to the ministers, by

appropriating the local revenues of the old episcopal Bishop of the Isles.

Theoretically, this was feasible: after the presbyterian ascendancy in 1690, the

moneys originally due each year to the Bishop of the Isles had been awarded to the

Synod of Argyll for ecclesiastical and educational purposes. Unfortunately, the synod

would or could do nothing without the assent of the local heritors:

The Synod therefore desired the said two Bretheren to aquaint the

Heritors of these Isles That the Synod would be very ready to go into

any reasonable measures for advancing so good a work and to

17

Loder, Colonsay, 151 18 CH1/2/59 fo.199; on 8 March 1732 the Rev. John Campbell was deposed from his parish for

drunkenness: Fasti iv, 58. 19

Loder, Colonsay, 152; Youngson, Jura, 198-200 20

CH2/557/3, 206; /4, 26-7, 93, 257-8; /5, 178-9, 196, 242-3, 259-60, 267; CH2/1153/1 fos.144, 145,

161v., 162.


9

encouradge them to meet with the next Synod here in Summer, And in

the meantyme they Recommend to the sd Mr Neil Campbell to take

special care of the small Isles belonging to his Charge.21

The ministers’ proposal might have been better timed. Made in the immediate

aftermath of the jacobite rising of 1716, the local landowners probably had enough

financial troubles of their own without adding to them by paying church dues,

possibly twice over, which they badly needed themselves. Neill Campbell did not

attend the synod meeting of 1717. The heritors must have made their displeasure felt,

and it would be some years before the proposal was raised again, this time in very

different political circumstances.

It is probably safe to say that the ministers on mainland Argyll would not have been

well acquainted with the spiritual welfare of the people of Colonsay. They would have

been more aware of what was happening on Scarba and the other islands to the north

of Jura, hence the special admonition to Neill Campbell to look after the islanders

there. Indeed, for at least some years afterwards the people of these small islands were

regularly served by the Rev. Daniel Morison, minister of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan,

the mainland parish opposite, and, although the proposal came to nothing, it was later

suggested that they should in fact be disjoined from Campbell’s parish and annexed

thereto.22

By the 1720s it looks as if the Rev. Neill Campbell and the Presbytery of Kintyre had

reached a modus vivendi. Every so often the presbytery would urge that the

recalcitrant minister appear more regularly; Campbell would thereupon, for

appearances’ sake, tender the usual excuses of bad weather and indifferent health.

This long-standing tacit agreement would be disrupted by the intrusion of the

representatives of the west-coast presbyteries who made up the Synod of Argyll,

themselves impelled by the great plans and projects for the church taking shape

further north. As the Gaelic proverb says, ‘S e farmad a nì treabhadh – it is envy that

makes the ploughing. It was from the mid-1720s, a time of astonishing upheaval in

the administrative framework of the church in the western Gàidhealtachd, that the

synod would give the greatest assistance to Neill Campbell, through colleagues,

auxiliary ministers and indeed money. It is then that the difference between their

zealousness and the comparative dilatoriness of the Presbytery of Kintyre comes

through most clearly. First of all, however, we have to turn to the wider picture, and

look at the nature and origins of these extraordinary innovations introduced in a space

of barely three years.

21

CH2/557/5, 196 22 CH2/557/5, 226, 238, 249, 269, 278, 280, 310.


10

THE COLONSAY CATECHIST: Part 2 – The Royal Bounty

Once more, I would like to ask your forebearance. I had intended this week to take a

brief look at how the yearly grant of a thousand pounds from the government to the

Church of Scotland – the so-called Royal Bounty – came to be during the mid-1720s.

It was, after all, the reason why our catechists were employed in the first place;

usually it paid half their salaries, with the SSPCK paying the remainder. However, as

this particular story has never really been looked at before, my research grew and

grew, taking me through all sorts of official letters and church records. So I will have

to ask for your patience and forgiveness – the following couple of articles will see us

altering the focus of our historical telescope and training our gaze on the middle

distance, on the national scene, rather than on Colonsay. When we do at last turn to

the Colonsay catechist, however, I hope that we will understand better the difficulties

the poor man found himself in when he fell foul of his employers in Edinburgh.

Finally, I hope that the rather obscure political background in this piece doesn’t

prove too indigestible.

i The Royal Bounty

Since its foundation in 1709, the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian

Knowledge, the evangelical charitable incorporation known as the SSPCK, had been

paying the salaries of schoolteachers scattered throughout the Gàidhealtachd.

However, it was not until the late 1720s that the scheme really took off, with a

massive increase in the number of schools financed by that body. This expansion was

to a great degree enabled by the new Committee for the Reformation of the Highlands

which, under the auspices of the Church of Scotland, distributed an annual grant from

the civil list of one thousand pounds known as the Royal Bounty, money which would

pay for itinerant ministers and catechists in the many parishes, above all in Roman

Catholic areas of the Gàidhealtachd, which were too large and scattered to be

supervised effectively by a single clergyman. Although the two bodies operated

largely separately from one another for the first few years following the initial grant

of the Royal Bounty in 1725, it was not long before they began an informal

partnership by which many SSPCK schoolteachers also worked as Royal Bounty

catechists. As we shall see later, this rather uneasy arrangement could lead to some

potentially awkward situations.

This new religious and educational initiative was, of course, an "incorporative drive"

designed to encourage Gaels to be loyal to the presbyterian church, to the

government, and to the Hanoverian succession, by weaning them away from the ever-

present dangers of Catholicism and jacobitism. Although primarily aimed at the

younger generation, it was hoped that the lessons learnt would percolate upwards to

parents, older siblings and neighbours. The project was also intended to enable a

systematic exploitation of the commercial opportunities of the land they lived in.

Gaels would thus become useful and obedient subjects of the British state. The


11

SSPCK, whose leading members had thought hard and lobbied long on this issue, had

a clear, confident and, most importantly, politically enticing end in view:

The most Proper remedy of these Evills appears to be a carefull

Instructing of that Poor people in the Principles of True Religion which

are the ffirmest pledges of subjects obedience to Lawfull authority, ffor

when the Judgment & Conscience is rightly informed these people will

throw off their Slavery to these who using au[thori]tie over ym,

especially when they find protection & Countenance from the best of

Kings, and by the Blessing of God upon these means the Inhabitants of

the fors[ai]d Countries who are not hurtfull to the Comon wealth will

become usefull Members yrof, and a farder Strength to it; And that

Vast Country, which Ly uncultivat may be improven to great

advantage when its Inhabitants shall be Instructed in religion and

Vertue, yr being not only great tracts of ground to work upon, But also

many Excellent places ffor Erecting ffisheries in And great Numbers of

people in those parts who with a mixture of Strangers which may be

set among them, may be imployed to good purposes

that peoples want of the knoledge of the Christian Religion and of their

retaining the Irish Tongue is the great Occasion of their continuancy in

the unhappy dependance and alliance above mentioned so nothing can

have a more Immediat & obvious tendancie to bring ym under the

strictest allegiance to our Gracious King and Protestant Succession in

his Royal family, And into a good Correspondence and understanding

with his Majesties Loyal Subjects and to a peaceable way of Living

with their Nighbours than Instructing ym in the methodes afors[ai]d...23

As we shall see, the original Royal Bounty grant was more to do with preventing

renewed jacobite activity and curbing resurgent Catholicism in the Gàidhealtachd. It

was soon recognized, however, that the project would be most effective if it paid for

community schoolteachers as well as for itinerant preachers and catechists. Once this

step was taken, it was inevitable that the SSPCK, with its strong motivation, its

zealously held beliefs, and some twenty years’ experience in the field, would become

involved. The Society had definite teaching methods, and a specific vision behind

them, a vision worked out through numerous memorials and petitions, in which

Gaelic language and culture would be completely extirpated from the Gàidhealtachd.

Instead of having to rely upon the donations of well-wishers and its own stock, the

SSPCK could now employ state resources as well, and so its influence was extended

much more widely than beforehand.

The Royal Bounty project could only be effective if preachers, catechists and teachers

were closely supervised by local presbyteries. This was only possible because of the

extraordinary transformation of the structure of the Church of Scotland in the

Gàidhealtachd in the mid-1720s. This alteration, and indeed the lobbying which led to

the granting of the Royal Bounty, were set in motion because both ministers and, no

doubt, the politicians and gentry who as church elders accompanied so many of them

to the General Assembly and served on church committees, had begun to take a much

23 GD95/10/77; cf. GD95/1/2, 234-40; 2/3, 159-65.


12

closer interest in Highland affairs. Far-reaching changes were taking place in

government policy towards Scotland, and indeed in the way Scotland was governed.

Recent jacobite scares had made the political establishment nervous about the

apparently increasing numbers of Catholics in the Gàidhealtachd. I would like here to

take a look at these momentous events.

Within three years, between 1724 and 1727, the framework of church government on

the west coast of the Gàidhealtachd was altered out of all recognition. In the far north,

a new presbytery of Tongue was carved out of the presbyteries of Caithness and

Dornoch. Further to the south another new presbytery, Gairloch, was detached from

that of Dingwall, while across the Minch to the west the Outer Hebrides, now

separated from the Presbytery of Skye, was erected into the Presbytery of Long

Island. In the heart of the Gàidhealtachd yet another two new presbyteries were

created, disjoined from the sprawling Presbytery of Lorn: around Lochaber, the

Presbytery of Abertarff; while, as well as the island itself, the new Presbytery of Mull

took in the Rough Bounds, Coll and Tiree. With the exception of that of Mull, all

these new presbyteries were placed under the pastoral care of the newly-created

Synod of Glenelg. It was the biggest shakeup in church government for three

generations.

The impulse for such changes appears to come primarily through the efforts of the

Presbytery of Skye. Following the failures of the jacobite risings of 1715 and 1719,

the exile of Uilleam Dubh Mackenzie, Lord Seaforth, the major jacobite landowner in

the area, and the death of Sir Domhnall MacDonald of Sleat, the jacobite estates in

their area were eventually forfeited and placed under official administration. The

presbytery was thus presented with a great opportunity. Their greatest enemies had at

last been worsted. Now that their estates were under government control, the chance

offered itself for the presbytery to reclaim the teinds and stipends due to them,

revenues which had usually been withheld by the previous episcopalian or Catholic

landlords. These ecclesiastical dues could be used to set up new parishes, finance new

ministers and build new churches. The very real possibility that the estates might soon

be auctioned off to jacobite sympathisers, proxies for their erstwhile owners, added

fresh impetus to the struggle to recover these dues. To accomplish such a task

required energy, patience, skill, skilful lobbying of the central authorities, and sheer

dogged perseverance.

The achievements of the Presbytery of Skye are as follows. On 19 December 1722

two new parishes were created on the Island of Lewis. In a meeting of the General

Assembly on 19 May 1724 the new presbyteries of Long Island, Abertarff and

Gairloch were created; these, with the original Presbytery of Skye, were to be

overseen by the new Synod of Glenelg. Nearly two years later, on 16 February 1726,

the plan was further refined when three new parishes were disjoined in Skye and the

Small Isles.24

The ministers of the Presbytery of Skye were, however, not the only evangelical

reformers in the Gàidhealtachd at this time. In north-west Sutherland Lord Reay had

taken it upon himself to lobby on behalf of the minister of Durness and the impossible

burden he had to bear in administering the huge parish. What was originally an appeal

24 CH1/1/29, 26-32, 162-6, 276-8, 354-5, 418-24, 432-3.


13

for collections from throughout the country turned into a more ambitious plan,

eventually resulting in a general reorganisation of the church in the far north. Most of

this scheme, with the new Presbytery of Tongue as its centrepiece, was authorized at a

General Assembly meeting of 11 May 1726.25

We should also note that other parts of

the Gàidhealtachd and indeed the Northern Isles shared in such reorganisation: in

1725 new synods of Caithness and Orkney were created, while, in the eastern

Gàidhealtachd, the Presbytery of Abernethy was refounded six years after its original

dissolution. Meanwhile, on 12 May 1726, the Synod of Mull had taken unilateral

action in creating a new Presbytery of Mull out of the western parishes of the

Presbytery of Lorn, a step taken without the permission of the General Assembly, and

only discovered, much to their disapproval, when the synod record book was

examined two years later.26

The long-term effect of this transformation cannot be underestimated. From the

fledgling presbyteries, and the new Synod of Glenelg, the church could receive a

constant flow of information about the state of religion on the west coast. It could thus

direct and intensify its missionary efforts where they were most needed, and supervise

the evangelization of the west coast and the islands much more closely. Local

ministers, and indeed their congregations, could no longer expect to get away without

regular inspection of their life and work. Above all, it was hoped that this new

structure would allow the church to combat a seemingly resurgent and successful

Roman Catholic missionary effort, both through vigorous sermonizing and keeping a

watchful eye on the priests and their helpers. But these changes did not take place in a

vacuum; rather, they should be related to the far-reaching political changes then

reshaping the government of Scotland and state policies towards the Gàidhealtachd.27

ii The political background

In the aftermath of the union of parliaments in 1707, power and patronage in Scottish

politics were bitterly fought over by two groupings of whig politicians: on the one

hand, the so-called Argathelians under the leadership of John Campbell, second duke

of Argyll, and his brother Archibald, earl of Ilay; and on the other, the set of

politicians nicknamed the Squadrone, under John Ker, first duke of Roxburgh. The

Argathelians were in the ascendancy at the time of the 1715 jacobite rising, but the

leniency Argyll, as commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, showed towards the

defeated jacobites, his reluctance to wreak vengeance upon them, proved to be the

downfall of his interest. Such policies may have been popular in Scotland, but they

allowed his political enemies in London to accuse him of cowardice and even of

covertly favouring the Stuart cause. Although these charges were of course quite

unjust, they had the desired effect: Argyll, after falling out with the king himself, was

25

CH1/1/29, 128-32,253, 357, 405-6, 513-14, 554; CH1/1/31, 47-9. 26 CH1/1/31, 439. 27

The following paragraphs owe much to the following studies: Rosalind Mitchison, “The government

and the Highlands, 1707-1745” in N.T.Phillipson and Rosalind Mitchison (eds.), Scotland in the Age of

Improvement (Edinburgh, 1996 [1970]), 24 - 46; P.W.J.Riley, The English Ministers and Scotland

1707-1727 (London, 1964); Richard H. Scott, “The politics and administration of Scotland 1725-48”

(University of Edinburgh Ph.D., 1981); John Stuart Shaw, The management of Scottish society 1707-

1764 (Edinburgh 1983); John M. Simpson, “Who steered the gravy train, 1707 – 1766?” in Phillipson

and Mitchison, 47 – 72; Eric G. Wehrli, “Scottish Politics in the age of Walpole”, (University of

Chicago Ph.D., 1983).


14

disgraced and, together with his brother, stripped of official posts. The Squadrone,

meanwhile, had backed the punitive measures taken against the rebels by the English

ministry, and so Roxburgh, with the favour of George I, became Secretary of State for

Scotland.28

It was not long, however, before the tide began to turn against the Squadrone,

primarily because of a contest for power between English whig ministers. At the same

time as Argyll and Ilay had fallen, the earls of Stanhope and Sunderland had

succeeded in winning the king’s favour and so ousting from power their rivals Robert

Walpole and viscount Townshend. Their ascendancy, however, was to be but short-

lived. The collapse of the South Sea Bubble, an ill-advised scheme to finance the

National Debt, devastated public and private finances alike. With his government

beset by accusations of corruption and mismanagement, Stanhope was under such

strain that in February 1721 he died. He was replaced as Secretary of State by his rival

Townshend. Two months later his colleague Sunderland was forced to resign from the

Treasury, making way for Robert Walpole. Perhaps inevitably, in the wake of these

major changes of government in London the structure, administration, personnel and

policies of the Scottish political world would be transformed as well.29

English politicians had, of course, two main expectations of the Scots who managed

the country for them. First of all, the people had to be tranquil and obedient. As they

were well aware, there were still large sections of the population, especially north of

the River Tay, who remained disaffected to the government, indeed to the very idea of

Hanoverian rule from London. Indeed, it was not only the politicians in London who

tended to overreact to the slightest rumour of jacobite activity in the north; many

isolated clergymen and government employees in the north were still extremely

nervous about continuing support for the Stuart monarchy, and indeed an apparent

ongoing revival of Roman Catholicism, in certain areas of the Gàidhealtachd.

Secondly, all English politicians were agreed on one thing: that Scotland had to pay

its way. Smuggling and corruption should to be stamped out, new taxes should be

introduced, and government revenue collection should be made more efficient.

Measures should be introduced to encourage the development of trades and the

fishing industry. Scotland would thus no longer be a dead weight on the United

Kingdom, a drain on resources, but rather a commercial partner, albeit a junior one, of

her richer English neighbour. The best way of fulfilling this aim, it appeared, was to

try to bring Scottish administration and patronage into a closer union with those of

England.30

In order to govern Scotland more efficiently and to stimulate her economy, the long-

term policy of Walpole and Townshend was to take the distribution of official

Scottish patronage into their own hands and, indeed, to impose direct rule as far as

possible, in effect to integrate the country’s government with that of England. The

first fruits of this policy was the amalgamation, following the report of a specially-

28 Riley, English ministers and Scotland, 263-7; Scott, “Politics and administration of Scotland”, 305-6;

Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 14, 109-12, 125, 130, 174, 178-81. 29

Raghnhild Hatton, George I: elector and king (London, 1978), 247-56; Riley, English ministers and

Scotland, 269-70; Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 15. 30 Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 86-9.


15

constituted commission, of the Scottish and English Customs Boards in 1723.31

However, such measures depended, of course, upon the support of Scottish

politicians. As we have seen, the most popular grouping in Scotland was not

Roxburgh’s Squadrone, but rather Argyll’s Argathelians, who were widely perceived

as being the patriotic party prepared to defend Scotland’s interests. The duke’s

personal support among Scottish MP’s - those men bound to him by ties of blood,

friendship and patronage - was an impressive one.32

It thus made political sense for

Walpole and Townshend to court the Argathelians rather than rely upon the

Squadrone who had of course benefited from the patronage of their rivals. This

change of power, however, did not happen overnight.

As long as he had the favour of the king, Roxburgh remained a formidable figure,

who did his best to resist the leaching away of patronage and administrative posts to

his rivals. Towards the end of 1723, though, with George I absent in Hanover,

Walpole and Townshend took their chance. A struggle ensued, but by the end of the

following year Roxburgh was effectively sidelined from Scottish politics. His most

important Squadrone allies were stripped of their positions at the end of May 1725,

while he himself was dismissed from his post in August 1725. In their place were

introduced Argathelian supporters. However, Walpole and Townshend had no

intention of setting up Argyll as new master of Scotland in place of Roxburgh. Rather,

through patronage, adoption of Argathelian policies, especially towards the

Gàidhealtachd, and adroit outmanoeuvring of the duke of Argyll, they made

themselves effective leaders of the grouping. The introduction of a highly unpopular

tax on malt in 1725 proved to be the undoing of both Roxburgh and Argyll. Argyll,

boxed in, felt unable to support the tax and thus compromise his personal popularity

in Scotland, while Roxburgh and his allies, by encouraging resistance to the measure,

ensured their own political destruction.33

"By 1725 the Scottish parties and the issues

which sustained them were virtually eliminated, the English ministers completely

victorious, and the prospect of a new political order opened for Scotland."34

Henceforth, Scotland would be managed, if not necessarily run, by Archibald

Campbell, earl of Ilay, with the help of his protege Andrew Fletcher, Lord Milton.

In the aftermath of the 1715 rising Roxburgh and the Squadrone had supported heavy-

handed reprisals by the government against the jacobite clans. Highlanders were to be

disarmed, and the Independent Highland Companies, effectively a police force for the

region, were disbanded in 1717. This measure may have deprived Argyll of

opportunities for patronage among his Highland allies, but also led to further disorder

in the region, disorder already exacerbated by the "monumental blunder" of the

scrapping of the principal Scottish executive body, the Privy Council, in 1708. The

troops from England brought in as replacements proved themselves quite inadequate

in the mountains, and were regarded as nothing more than an occupying force.

Following another jacobite rising in 1719, violent resistance to government troops on

the forfeited Seaforth estate in Wester Ross, and a series of depredations culminating

in the murder of fourteen soldiers in Lochaber in November 1720, it appears that

31

Scott, “Politics and administration of Scotland”, 2-4, 13-124, 318-25; Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 7-

8, 73-7. 32

Scott, “Politics and administration of Scotland”, 301; Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 106-13, 150-4. 33

Scott, “Politics and administration of Scotland”, 325-57, 359, 367; Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 46,

78-9, 167-73,212-17. 34 Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 143.


16

Roxburgh attempted to resurrect the Highland Companies, but the government in

London, embroiled in financial chaos in the wake of the South Sea Bubble, would

have nothing to do with the proposal.35

Indeed, with the exception of John, earl of Sutherland, very few of the major

adherents of the Squadrone came from the Gàidhealtachd. This might be most clearly

seen in the fact that during the early 1720s the earl held the post of lord-lieutenant of

five counties in the north: Cromartyshire, Nairnshire, Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and

Orkney and Shetland.36

Instead, the region was dominated by the duke of Argyll and

his interest, especially after the failure of the jacobite risings of 1715 and 1719.

Roxburgh’s continuing aggressive, if ineffective, stance towards jacobites in the

region was thus also a challenge to the Argathelians who, as we have seen, pursued a

relatively lenient policy towards erstwhile rebels. It is clear that Walpole and

Townshend soon came to be convinced that the best way to ensure long-term security

in the Gàidhealtachd was to follow a proactive policy, to engage with its people - with

a firm hand, of course - through launching and supporting a range of political,

military, commercial, ecclesiastical and educational initiatives in order to integrate the

region with the rest of the country. Such an approach, of course, appealed to

Argathelian politicians, especially to those with estates in the Gàidhealtachd who

stood to profit from such projects, and the prolonged peace and patronage which

would surely follow in their wake. It was, indeed, partly due to their advocacy of such

very policies that the duke and his supporters had fallen from grace in 1716.37

35 Allan I. Macinnes, Clanship, commerce, and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (East Linton, 1996),

193-7; Mitchison, “The government and the Highlands”, 31-2; Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 47-50, 111-

12. 36

Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 30, 41 37 Wehrli, “Scottish politics”, 67-73, 170.


17

THE COLONSAY CATECHIST: Part 3 – The Church of Scotland

This week I’ll take a brief look at the difficulties faced by the Church of Scotland and

its ministers in the Gàidhealtachd during the 1720s. The Rev. Neil Campbell of Jura

and Colonsay was certainly not alone in the troubles he faced, and I hope that we

might understand his grievances better if we put them in a wider context. Next time I

hope to look at how the Royal Bounty of one thousand pounds for preachers and

catechists came to be given to the Church of Scotland in 1725, before returning to

Colonsay and its schoolmaster James Moore.

iii The Church of Scotland

It was now over thirty years since the church had reverted to presbyterianism in 1690.

At that time the vast majority of clergy who accepted the new presbyterian

establishment were to be found south of the Tay; many ministers further to the north

still adhered to the previous episcopal establishment. A new generation of native

Gaelic presbyterians were gradually coming through the ranks, but the numbers,

especially in the north-west Gàidhealtachd, were still pitifully small. I should like here

to discuss the difficulties these ministers faced in fulfilling their office, attending to

their flocks, and spreading the presbyterian gospel throughout their parishes.

The most common difficulty facing ministers from the Gàidhealtachd was the sheer

unwieldiness of their parishes, many of which had remained largely unchanged since

the medieval era. Although the presbyterian Synod of Argyll had undertaken some

boundary reforms during the late 1650s, these were promptly reversed when

episcopalianism was reintroduced after the Restoration. Larger parishes, with the

widely scattered population typical of the Gàidhealtachd of that time, would have

several different places of worship, sometimes as many as four or five. These might

be well-nigh inaccessible in winter, when the minister would be forced to struggle

there on foot, on rugged tracks through mountains, moorland and rivers in spate. If

and when he reached his destination, he would generally have to preach outside; even

the main church of the parish itself might be little more than a neglected and roofless

ruin. We should remember just how disjointed many mainland parishes were, with

portions and pendicles scattered often at some distance from the principal seat of

worship. In many districts the neat and orderly consolidation carried out in the

Victorian era, as presented even in scholarly histories, has obscured the crazy

patchwork of earlier times, a seemingly haphazard arrangement rooted in the old

medieval estates.

If the mainland parish was all too often an enormous, mountainous and disjointed

tract of land, the Hebridean parishes off the west coast were generally even worse.

The conscientious minister would visit each of the several islands in his charge,

having to pay dear, of course, for the various ferry and accommodation charges he

would incur. The seas, treacherous enough in summer, were often quite unnavigable

during winter, from October until April. A Highland ministry was thus an

extraordinarily demanding one, and the sheer strain of the task soon told upon the

clergy.

The obvious and ideal solution, of course, would be to split the larger parishes and to

erect new ones. However, a variety of obstacles stood in the way. The fundamental


18

stumbling-block was the objections of local heritors to any such scheme. By law

parish landowners had to provide and maintain church, manse, glebe (four "soums"

capable of supporting four cows or forty sheep), grass (to support the minister’s horse

and two cows) as well as communion elements. They had also to pay the minister’s

stipend – his living allowance – out of the teinds, a levy on crops and other farm

produce. Not only were most landowners unwilling to pay the extra – often quite

considerable – expense, often, given the poor quality of their estates, it was difficult

enough for them to pay for the minister they had, let alone pay for an extra one in a

new parish. To make matters worse, a clause inserted into an act of parliament of

1696 stated that parishes could not be split without the consent of three-quarters of the

heritors. Across vast tracts of the Gàidhealtachd, this measure effectively blocked any

further reorganisation of the parish system. Recalcitrant heritors could have other

more subtle weapons up their sleeves too: when a new cadre of ministers were settled

in Wester Ross in the late 1720s, we see the local landowners refusing to pay the

stipends due themselves, but laying the onus of collecting what was due from their

tenantry upon the ministers themselves, thereby putting the clergy in a very awkward

situation indeed.

It is notable that the only parishes in the Gàidhealtachd which were eventually divided

up during the early eighteenth century were either those on land forfeited from their

previous episcopal or Catholic owners and run by government officials, or else, very

infrequently, where the land was owned outright by zealous heritors. The new

parishes erected in Lewis in 1722, in Skye and the Small Isles in 1726, and in Wester

Ross in 1727, could only be created because they were situated on the forfeited estates

of Mackenzie of Seaforth, MacDonald of Sleat, MacDonald of Clan Ranald and

Mackinnon of Strath, all of which were being administered for the government by the

Barons of the Exchequer. Even then, the barons were far from happy with seeing what

must have been a handy source of private revenue being creamed off by the church.

With possible restoration of the estates to agents of the original owners looming, the

church had to threaten legal action before the later batches of reorganisation were

carried out. On the other hand, the extensive reorganisation of the parishes on Lord

Reay’s estate in the far north-west, or Dùthaich MhicAoidh, was solely due to Reay’s

enthusiasm for the presbyterian church, and his fervent and tireless lobbying of the

commission of the General Assembly year after year.

Most Highland landowners, however, were less than enthusiastic about having to pay

for new ministers. On the other hand, the church, both at local and national level, was

often not particularly keen on antagonising the leading men in the district, especially

given that these men often served as the ruling elders who accompanied their

ministers to the General Assembly every May, and so had an important voice in

deciding church policy. The situation was even more tricky on the west coast, because

the Synod of Argyll was permitted by acts of parliament of 1690 and 1696 to keep the

monies due to ministers of unplanted parishes there – the "vacant stipends" – for its

own use. Rather extraordinarily, it was thus in the synod’s financial interest to keep

these parishes without ministers, a fact which led to more than one clash with zealous

local presbyteries.

Last week we saw how a new "super-synod", the Synod of Glenelg, was created in the

north-west in 1724. The major alterations in presbytery and synod boundaries around

this time were in effect a second-best solution. They allowed the church to intensify


19

its missionary efforts across the western seaboard, without the inconvenience and

expense of having to create new parishes. It was evidently intended that these new,

more localized church courts would permit more frequent meetings of local ministers,

and would also ensure that the General Assembly would be able to supervise the

ministers much more closely. However, the basic problem remained: how to ensure

the church’s message was heard in vast, widely-scattered and isolated parishes, above

all where these parishioners were already being ministered to by local Catholic

missionary priests.

Another problem was increasingly preoccupying the church during the 1720s: the

sheer lack of Gaelic-speaking clergy in the Gàidhealtachd. Few families in the region

were able to send their sons to university, let alone to study divinity. The church tried

to get round this problem by trying to rustle up bursaries for any promising young

Gaels – "diverse hopeful youths", as they are described in its minutes –and demanded

that presbyteries, Lowland as well as Highlands, used what educational bursaries they

had to train Gaelic-speaking ministers. Lowland presbyteries were understandably

rather slow to pay for Gaels rather than their own sons. After a few years the bursary

system was full up.

Even when Gaelic-speaking ministers did minister in Gaelic-speaking parishes, there

was the problem of ensuring that they stayed there. Some Gàidhealtachd parishes,

especially the many smaller parishes in Argyll, were certainly more appealing than

others. There are a number of cases during this time when presbyteries complained

that long-suffering ministers in the most demanding parishes in their bounds were –

no doubt most willingly – poached by friends and sympathetic acquaintances in

neighbouring presbyteries, and settled with easier flocks to care for.

The troubles faced by the Church of Scotland in the Gàidhealtachd were certainly

pressing. What made them a matter of national concern was a matter which had been

identified with the region for some time now. Nearly every year the church would

hear memorials from Highland presbyteries and synods bewailing their grievances,

their vast parishes, their unsympathetic heritors, but there was one particular

complaint which was guaranteed an audience at the General Assembly, a complaint

which increasingly preoccupied the church’s councils, and would soon, for a brief

while at least, focus the attention of the state as well. This was the problem of the

increase in Roman Catholicism, or, as it was known to protestant contemporaries, the

"growth of popery".

It is perhaps difficult for us nowadays to understand just how wide-spread, indeed

universal, anti-Catholicism was in the English-speaking areas of the United Kingdom

during the early modern period and beyond. Speaking of England itself, Eamon Duffy

describes it as "as integral a part of the nation’s self-awareness as beer and roast-beef,

and equally above reason"38

; to Linda Colley, anti-Catholicism was "a powerful

cement between the English, the Welsh and the Scots, particularly lower down the

38

Eamon Duffy, ““Poor protestant flies”: conversions to Catholicism in early eighteenth-century

England” in Derek Baker (ed.), Religious motivation: biographical and sociological problems for the

church historian (Studies in Church History xv, Oxford, 1978), 289-90.


20

social scale."39

The church records of the time are crammed with references to the

dangers of "swarms of trafficking priests" and "popish emissaries".

Periodic bursts of panic about the growth of popery were all too common in the early

eighteenth century. Whether they were justified in a purely religious sense is another

matter. There certainly was some increase in the number of Roman Catholics in

Scotland during this period; indeed, the numbers may have doubled. However, the

actual figures involved were extremely small, possibly from some six thousand at the

end of the seventeenth century to over sixteen thousand in 1763 – still a mere two per

cent of the Scottish population at the time.40

But such statistics tend to hide the facts,

firstly, that the growth was overwhelmingly in one region – the Gàidhealtachd; and

secondly, that rather than being a slow curve upwards, such increases inevitably took

place in short bursts as priests and other missionaries entered new areas and began to

win over followers. The early 1720s saw just such a phase, and to local presbyterians

it must have appeared as if the world was turning upside down.

Under the dynamic leadership of Bishop James Gordon the Catholic mission to the

Highlands was revitalized, especially in the 1720s. Under the patronage of Alexander,

second duke of Gordon, from 1716 onwards boys were trained up for the priesthood

in the remote seminary of Scalan in Gaelic-speaking Banffshire. Now, for the first

time, there was a substantial number of local priests operating in the Gàidhealtachd,

able to use local knowledge and family networks to win converts at all levels of

society. With the help of Catholic sympathizers among the local gentry, the priests

were holding their own in areas on the western seaboard such as the Rough Bounds,

Uist and Barra, areas of Catholic religion since the earlier seventeenth century. On the

other hand, there were new successful mission fields, such as Lochaber, and the areas

bordering Catholic Strathglass. The priests’ task was perhaps made easier by the

dying off of the final generation of the old episcopal ministers. Many of the new

generation of episcopal preachers, indeed, saw Catholics as allies against an

encroaching presbyterianism. This was the more so because both denominations were

strongly linked with the jacobite cause.

Catholicism and jacobitism were interchangeable in the eyes of the presbyterian

church: "’Tis needless to observe that to make one a Papist, is to make him also a

Jacobite." James VII had been exiled for his championing of the catholic cause, and

his son, the titular James VIII, held to his father’s religion. The catholics in Scotland,

it must be said, were hardly blameless in their political views. They were imbued with

jacobitism; Bishop Gordon had encouraged James VIII to launch the 1715 rising; his

Highland successor Bishop Hugh MacDonald was to welcome Prince Charles Edward

Stuart in 1745. Catholics were estranged from the protestant establishment, and the

Church of Scotland was all too willing to stress this in their official memorials to the

government. The growth of Roman Catholicism in the Gàidhealtachd was not just a

threat to the church, it was also a threat to the entire British state. The Presbytery of

Lorn, in a memorial of 1722, appealed to the General Assembly thus:

39

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the nation 1707-1837 (London, 1992), 23. 40

Daniel Szechi, “Defending the True Faith: kirk, state, and Catholic missioners in Scotland, 1653-

1755”, Catholic Historical Review 82 (1996), 399.


21

We have long lyen under personal grievances but now the growth of

Popery is like to turn dangerous to state & church it being certain that

every one that is brought over to Popery, is at the same time brought

over to be an enemy to His Majesty King George, and the protestant

succession in his royal family, upon the security whereof depends

under God our most valuable libertys and privileges, sacred & civil.

To the church at this time, Catholicism "appears to diffuse and spread itself so

exceedingly, that if it be not timeously and effectualy presented, threatens the

apostatizing of many unto Popery, to the great disturbance and danger of this National

Church and the Protestant Succession".

Whether the government was prepared to do anything about it is another matter.

Following the failure of the 1715 jacobite rising, the Gàidhealtachd had been left as

something of a power vacuum. The Independent Companies had been disbanded, and

the legal apparatus of the region placed in the hands of Squadrone supporters. Despite

the constant demands of the Church of Scotland that action be taken against the

growth of popery, the authorities were as a rule unwilling to put the penal laws into

effect, and make matters worse for them in an already somewhat lawless region.

Priests were thus still allowed to preach and convert, while Catholic heirs could be

educated in the faith of their father, and succeed to his estate. The situation was

especially difficult for presbyterian clergy who ministered in areas dominated by local

Catholic magnates, above all in the great swathes of country where the duke of

Gordon was superior; or else lived far from legal authorities who could perhaps be

persuaded into taking action against local Catholics.

There is a basic problem when we discuss such phenomena as "the growth of popery"

– or the survival of episcopalianism or indeed the growth of presbyterianism itself

during this period. The simple question is, what exactly did such ideological

commitment mean to the people of the Gàidhealtachd in the early eighteenth century?

As we have seen, there was a tiny number of clergy of all denominations ministering

across a huge area to a scattered population. In the absence of a settled local ministry

and a comprehensive system of church schools and catechists, most people were

simply not exposed to matters of dogma, and didn’t particularly care about them

either.

In fact, what most people wanted of a clergyman seems to have been that he marry

them, bury them, and, above all, that he baptize their children, so that if a child died

early, he or she could be buried with a name in a churchyard. It was not overly

important who carried this out, as long as he was a man of God. Judging from the

church records of the time, most people were prepared to pray with priests and

ministers alike. Neither side, of course, could let this state of affairs continue. The

Church of Scotland, as we shall see, laid increasing stress on catechizing and

educating the people of the Gàidhealtachd in the presbyterian faith, reaching out to a

new generation. Although it is not so well documented, it is clear that there was a

similar drive among Catholic priests to bring up young people in their own faith.

There was a polarizing of religion during this period, but for most people during the

early eighteenth century we might be permitted to wonder just how strong

confessional allegiances were – as long, of course, as they remained detached from

political and clan loyalties.


22


This piece is about how the Church of Scotland came to be given one thousand

pounds sterling every year by the government to pay for preachers and catechists in

the Gàidhealtachd. I’ve included some chunks of eighteenth-century prose to give a

flavour of the times. In the next instalment I shall talk about the various problems

which faced the committee which administered the grant – then at last I shall return

to the Colonsay catechists!

THE FOUNDING OF THE ROYAL BOUNTY GRANT

Introduction:

We have seen the atrocious conditions under which many Church of Scotland

ministers in the Gàidhealtachd laboured in the early eighteenth century. Every year

the General Assembly or the Commission of the Church of Scotland would received a

fresh crop of representations and petitions from Highland presbyteries, complaining

about their sufferings, as well as drawing attention to what they saw as the dangerous

growth in Roman Catholicism. Now, the Church certainly sympathized with its

ministers’ problems, and persistently lobbied the government for help with pages of

memorials. But it was not until 1723 that they began to take matters in hand with any

degree of urgency. What caused this change in attitude appears to have been the

discovery of the Atterbury plot the year before.

The Atterbury Plot and its aftermath:

In 1722 British politics was convulsed by the discovery of the jacobite Atterbury Plot,

so-called because of the key rôle played in it by Francis Atterbury, the bishop of

Rochester. King George I was to be murdered as he travelled from London to his

native Hanover. At the same time, an invasion of Britain was to be launched, led by

exiled Irish officers in the French service, either under the jacobite hero James Butler,

duke of Ormonde, or else under the naturalized French general Arthur Dillon.

Government ministers were to be arrested and held in the Tower, while the jacobites

would seize the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. However, with the help of

the French government the plot was discovered and its progress monitored by Robert

Walpole’s extensive spy network. Certain coded letters referred to a lame spotted dog

called Harlequin. The dog really existed, was owned by Atterbury, and so the

conspiracy was revealed.

Although only one person was executed after the plot was discovered – Atterbury

himself spent the rest of his life in exile – it had clearly rattled the political

establishment. Habeas Corpus was suspended. The Roman Catholics of England were

made scapegoats, and a swingeing £10,000 fine was laid upon the entire English

Catholic community. The discovery of the conspiracy affected North Britain as well.


23

The Commission of the Church of Scotland, made up of all ministers and ruling elders

who were able to attend, met every quarter. If we want to understand how Church

policy came to be formulated, we have to pore over its records as well as those of the

annual General Assembly. At their November sitting the Commission composed an

address to the king "upon occasion of the happie discovery of the Late wicked

Conspiracy against His Royal Person and Family". Hardly coincidentally, the

following day letters were composed to Roxburgh and the Lord Advocate, reminding

them of the address of the previous General Assembly to the king and the memorials

therewith concerning the growth of popery. Finally, a letter to the king himself was

written, in which the Church rather sleekitly prided itself on not having any

disaffected persons in its midst – unlike the suspect Church of England.

The General Assembly of 1723 and its plans:

The King’s address to the General Assembly of May 1723, delivered by his

representative the Lord High Commissioner, was full of references to "the late horrid

Conspiracy" against himself and the protestant religion. Only providence, it seemed,

had saved the House of Hanover and the political establishment from disaster. The

speeches by the moderator and the Commissioner himself were of the same tenor.

That year – at the very same time as a parliamentary bill was being passed against

Atterbury in London – the ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland passed a

whole raft of anti-Catholic measures, and renewed the acts against popery passed by

previous assemblies. A commission was to be appointed to work with the Lord

Advocate and others in government to consider best how to prosecute priests and

other "emissaries of Rome"; and measures were passed against illegal meeting houses

and popish schools. There is no doubt, then, but that the discovery of the nefarious

Atterbury Plot spurred the Church to take specific steps to combat Catholicism

throughout Scotland, above all in the Gàidhealtachd.

On the 20 May 1723 the General Assembly considered a new proposal: the creation of

a new Synod of Glenelg which would take up much of the north-west seaboard, the

northern Hebrides and Lochaber. The reasons given for doing so were as follows: "the

Greatness of Ministerial Charges in diverse places, the Want of Schools, the long

Vacancy of some Churches, And the vast distance that Ministers have to travel to

Synods and Presbyteries, whereby when they do attend the same, they are much

diverted from their parochial Work and from watching over their flocks, and guarding

their people against the poisonous influence of Popish Emissaries and other persons

disaffected to Our happie Establishment". The neighbouring presbyteries and synods

were asked to send in their own ideas, and the Commission was asked to prepare a

report for the next year’s assembly. Now, it’s very interesting that this plan appears to

have been drawn up on the hoof, as it were, during the General Assembly itself: it was

not tabled by either the Commission or the presbyteries, though we might imagine

that the energetic ministers of the Presbytery of Skye might well have had a hand in it.

But the General Assembly was considering other ambitious schemes as well. The

committee appointed to consider the growth of popery were particularly referred "to

pitch upon fit persons to travel as Preachers and Catechists in the Bounds of the

Presbytery of Strathbogie, Abernethie and Lorn And to address the Government for a

suitable Fund yearly during His Majestie’s pleasure for maintaining Preachers and

Catechists in Countreys where Popery abounds". In addition, they were to try to raise


24

money for defraying the cost of creating new parishes. Bursaries were finally fixed for

Gaelic-speaking students, although there were soon problems with the students who

applied: the synod of James Anderson, schoolmaster in Hawick, preferred to keep him

in his present employment, as he had "such an Aversion to, and unfitness for

performing in publick, as seem’d to them to be very inherent in his temper and

constitution"; on the other hand, the bursary of Aeneas Sage from Easter Ross was

promptly stopped after it was discovered that he did "head a furious Jacobite Mob in

the College of Aberdeen" during the 1715 rising.

The General Assembly of 1724 – old plans realized and new plans in view:

In March 1724 the large committee appointed the previous year to consider ways of

stopping the growth of popery had compiled their report. They had one major

recommendation: that a suitable annual fund should be supplied "for maintaining

Preachers and Catechists in Countreys where Popery abounds and defraying the

Charges of Processes that may be needful for suppressing Popery and preventing the

Growth thereof". An address to the king was prepared, and it was requested that His

Majesty might condescend to grant such a fund from out of the Royal Bounty (the

Civil List) "Toward the Assissting the Ministers of this Church in instructing the

People in the Knowledge of the Protestant Religion, Preventing the Growth of Popery

and Recovering such as have been misled by Popish Emissaries and for maintaining

more Preachers and Catechists to travel Through the foresaid Countreys where Popery

so much prevails, And for defraying the expences of Processes that may be needful

toward the Suppressing of Popery and preventing the further Growth thereof." In

other words, the monies would be used first of all to pay the salaries of preachers and

catechists to help the hard-pressed ministers of the Gàidhealtachd, and secondly to

pay for whatever legal costs might be involved in adopting a new hard line against the

Catholic clergy.

The General Assembly of May 1724 put into operation the far-reaching changes to the

framework of church government which had been suggested the year before: as had

been planned, three new presbyteries were created, and a new Synod of Glenelg

erected to oversee the entire north-west coast and northern Hebrides. It is clear from

the letters written by the earl of Findlater, the King’s Commissioner (and thus the

representative of the government) that year, to his masters in London that the Church

were already lobbying for the new fund even before the General Assembly had begun.

On 7 May, Findlater tells Walpole in his rather crabbed handwriting how:

the Moderator and several Ministers of the Commission of the Last

Assembly did this day deliver me a copie of the adress the

Commissioners presented to the King by the D. of Roxbrugh by which

they desir His Majesty may alou a soum of money yearly out of the

fonds of the Civil List here for providing Ministers they think it

necessary to be sent to assist in the Large parishes in the Highlands and

Islands Where there are great numbers of papists and Popish priests if I

could obtain a favourable ansuer it woud pleas them very much they

say the Kings Advocat hes spoak of this to Mr Walpole and that He

finds him inclined to favour them in it I promised to apply to Your Lo

and Mr Walpole and I have also writt a short Letter to him they will

belive me negligent if neither Your Lop or he accknoledge that I have


25

made this application and it woud give me interest with them if they

succeed the soum they propose is five hundred pound Yearly I beg

pardon for this trouble…

The commissioners had realized that new synods and presbyteries on their own would

not be sufficient. The problem lay at parish level. The parishes were too vast and

scattered, and their ministers would require assistant preachers to share the workload.

The ministers were playing it safe. They had already presented their petition to the

duke of Roxburgh, the "Scottish" Secretary of State, leader of the Squadrone, and the

most powerful magnate in Scotland at the time. Since last year’s General Assembly,

however, Roxburgh had fallen from grace. They therefore presented the petition once

again, this time to the earl of Findlater for him to forward to the men who now

controlled the administration of the country, namely Townshend and Walpole. In it

they stressed the continuing growth of Roman Catholicism in certain districts of the

Gàidhealtachd, where "in some Parishes, for every Protestant Teacher there are six

Popish Traffickers practizing incessantly amongst them". This growing evil, the

ministers wrote, represented a danger to "our Holy Religion, and the Protestant

Succession in Your Royal Family, upon which, under God, the Security of our

Religion, and of all our other valuable Interests does depend". The efforts of the

Church and the SSPCK (the charity-school organization), though heartfelt, were all in

vain: "all these helps come far short of what is necessary for preserving and

recovering that People from the Contagion of Popery and Jacobitism with which they

are infected." As we have seen, the ministers were asking for money:

A suitable Fund yearly During Your Majestie’s pleasure Toward the

Assisting the Ministers of this Church in instructing the People in the

Knowlege of the Protestant Religion, preventing the Growth of Popery

and recovering such as have been misled by Popish Emissaries, And

for maintaining more Preachers and Catechists to travel through the

foresaid Countries where Popery so much prevails, And for defraying

the Expences of Processes that may be needful toward the Suppressing

of Popery and preventing the further Growth thereof.

As well as stressing the political dangers of the situation, the proposal had at the same

time to appear reasonable and practical. An official report on the Gàidhealtachd had

been compiled in the aftermath of the 1715 rising, which stated "that were the

Inhabitants of those Countries, who are now dangerous and hurtful to the Nation,

taught the Principles of Religion and Virtue, they would become useful and profitable

Members of the Commonwealth." The report went on to recommend that "a great

many Schools will be necessary to be established": 151, to be exact. With each

schoolteacher paid a salary of £20, the entire scheme would cost the gigantic sum of

£3020 sterling. Given the great cost of the project, then, and the fact that London

politicians in 1716 would rather punish the Gaels than give them vast amounts of

money, it is hardly surprising that the report was never seriously considered, if it was

even read at all, and quietly shelved. Eight years later, five hundred pounds per

annum was the sum the moderator and the ministers privately requested: a much more

reasonable amount to ask for, surely. Rather astonishingly, given the eternal

parsimoniousness of all governments, they would in fact be awarded twice that sum.


26

The earl of Findlater had a difficult General Assembly in May 1724. His political

enemy Roxburgh refused point-blank to correspond with him, and, as the earl rather

peevishly noted to Townshend, he was given no help whatsoever by the duke’s

Squadrone allies in Edinburgh. He therefore had to act on his own, helping to ensure

the election of the Argathelian candidate William Wishart, principal of the University

of Edinburgh, as moderator, against his rival William Hamilton, the Professor of

Divinity there.

On 18 May 1724 the Presbytery of Skye presented a fresh petition to the General

Assembly, informing them that the new parishes were going well, and requesting the

continued help of the Church against their enemies. The presbytery also informed the

assembly of a number of "diverse very hopeful Youths amongst them past their

Course at College who incline to follow the Study of Divinity, besides tuo entering

upon trials". The Assembly not only promised further encouragement and assistance,

but recommended that financial support be given to Gaelic-speaking students "And

that Enquiry be made for some who have attended the Profession of Divinity a

competent time in order to be entered on trials, that when licensed they may be sent to

the foresaid Countries to preach." A committee was to be set up to give further

consideration to matters raised by the presbytery, among whose members were the

arch-Argathelians Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglass, Alexander Campbell the

advocate, and George Drummond. On the same day it was stated that the

neighbouring presbyteries approved of the scheme for the new Synod of Glenelg. Its

progress would be closely monitored by the neighbouring church courts. On 19 May

the new synod and the new presbyteries within it were formally constituted.

The General Assembly of 1724 discussed a number of other measures relating to the

Gàidhealtachd. On the final day of the assembly, on the 27 May, the Church took the

step of recommending that preachers and catechists be recruited and sent to the

presbyteries of Strathbogie, Abernethy and Lorn, all areas where Roman Catholicism

was strong. They were to be paid salaries of 400 merks a year out of the Church’s

money. The Church evidently considered it to be a matter of the greatest importance:

these salaries were to be the very first drawn out of all ecclesiastical accounts, apart

from the annual charges of the Church itself. What is happening here, then, is that the

Church is saying in code to the government: "We’re willing to shoulder our share of

the burden: we expect you to do the same". In his closing speech, the moderator made

the pointed recommendation to the Lord High Commissioner, the earl of Findlater,

"That effectual methods, which His Majesty in His Great Wisdom will find out, may

be taken for suppressing the Great and Lamentable Growth of Popery". In his reply,

the earl promised to take the Church’s recommendations into account.

The government listens:

By the end of the Assembly the poor earl of Findlater was exhausted. Using an

amanuensis, he wrote to Townshend: "I hope you’ll pardon me for not useing my own

hand because my eyes can scarcely support me in doeing of it after the fatigue I have"

His work was not over, however. At the beginning of June he again received a

deputation of ministers. Once more the request for funding was made:

What they chiefly desire is ane additional fond for sending assistance

to thos pariochins [i.e. parishes] in the North and Hylands Wher


27

poperie abounds and prevails and they are content that What His

Majestie gives may be appropriat in the strictest maner for that use...

The earl of Findlater sent the request to secretary of state Charles Townshend.

Townshend was obviously interested in the matter, and asked the lawyer Lord Grange

– later to win infamy by having his wife kidnapped and despatched to St Kilda – to

compile a report on the situation in the Highlands. However, for the rest of the year

Grange was too caught up with legal business to comply. But it was not long before

another somewhat sinister figure had already presented his own report on the

Gàidhealtachd.

Simon Fraser Lord Lovat had a rather rackety career, ending with his execution on

Tower Hill for supporting Prince Charlie and the jacobites in the Forty-Five. In the

1720s, however, he had weaselled his way into government favour, and to the

chiefdom of his own clan, as a result of his strong stand for the government during the

1715 rising. Given what we know of Lovat, it is likely that he compiled his own

report fairly speedily, whether because of what he had heard about the General

Assembly’s plans, or of rumours that the government in London were becoming

increasingly interested in what was going on in the north of Scotland. His report,

recommending various legal and military schemes, was fairly brief and to the point –

by Lovat’s standards at least. It evidently attracted government attention. At any rate,

on 3 July 1724 the government despatched Major-General George Wade to Scotland,

supposedly to inspect the military state of the Gàidhealtachd. In actual fact Wade was

on a secret mission to see how far Lovat’s report tallied with reality.

General Wade’s mission:

Wade spent the rest of 1724 travelling around the region, and compiling his own

report on what he observed. It was ready on 10 December. In it the general, back in

London, discussed clanship, the methods and various causes of cattle-thieving, and

the need for the government to extend the system of state justice into the Highlands.

The Independent Companies – the local police (and spy) forces – should be re-

established; the people of the Highlands should be disarmed; the series of barracks

through the Great Glen, at Inverness, Killiehuimen (Fort Augustus) and Fort William,

should be strengthened; and a system of roads and bridges should be constructed to

allow regular troops easier access into the heart of the Gàidhealtachd. The

government evidently approved of Wade’s ideas, and a fortnight later he was

appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army in Scotland. He continued to refine his

plans, and eventually left London for Scotland in June 1725.

The year 1724, then, sees the beginnings of an active and interventionist government

policy towards the Gàidhealtachd. Now, one way of understanding this new course of

action is by looking at the contemporary political background. As we have seen,

during this period Walpole and Townshend were in the process of taking over the

administration of Scotland. In doing so, however, they relied upon the support of the

Argathelian block of Scottish politicians – those led by the duke of Argyll and his

brother the earl of Ilay. The English politicians were certainly adopting an active

policy towards the Gàidhealtachd, a policy which would certainly please the many

Argathelians who had Highlands estates and interests.


28

However, we also have to consider the international situation. In early 1725, Britain

was in the midst of a war scare. Her erstwhile ally France had fallen out with Spain;

on 29 April a treaty was signed at Vienna between Spain and the Hapsburgs. A new

jacobite invasion was being mooted; if it were to take place, inevitably it would sail to

the Scottish Highlands. The various schemes for the Gàidhealtachd planned by

General Wade and others during 1724 and 1725 were not just to win over Scottish

politicians; they were designed to impose military and legal authority on a region

which was once more threatened – for the third time in a decade – with foreign

invasion. We can see from Wade’s report, from the stress he laid upon the

construction of roads and bridges, that the authorities were not just considering short-

term measures to keep the region peaceful. They had a longer-term goal in mind as

well: the pacification of the Gaels, and the incorporation of the Gàidhealtachd into the

British state. However, such reform as they envisaged was not to be accomplished

through military and legal measures alone. The process would have an ideological

side to it as well, through which the authorities could reach out to hearts and minds.

By careful and persistent lobbying, the Church of Scotland persuaded the government

that it could play a crucial rôle.

The General Assembly of 1725 – the granting of the Royal Bounty:

In March 1725 the Commission of the Church received a letter from Principal

Wishart, then in London, "Shewing that the Earl of Findlater and he had been using

their endeavours for procuring an Allowance from the Government for maintainance

of Ministers, Preachers and Catechists, to be employ’d in parishes in the Highlands

and Islands where Popery does most prevail; And that he is hopeful the same may be

obtain’d, And that some account thereof may be laid before the next Assembly". This

is indeed what happened.

The King’s Commissioner at the 1725 General Assembly was another prominent

Argathelian, the earl of Loudon. His opening speech on 6 May contained as its

centrepiece a major policy initiative which had been officially approved on the 26

April. I shall quote the relevant passage in full:

There having been Representations made to His Majesty by former

Assemblies and their Commissions, Setting forth, That Popery and

Ignorance do increase & prevail in the Highlands and Islands, And that

One of the principal Causes thereof, is, The large extent of the parishes

in those parts, Whereby the Ministers of those parishes find themselves

unable to visite their Parishioners in their several bounds as they ought,

and give them such Instruction as is necessary to enlighten them, and

Arm them against the Practices of many Popish Priests that resort

thither, in order to pervert and seduce them from the Profession and

Principles of the Reform’d Religion, And that the Most probable

means to prevent those Practices, would be to give some proper

encouragment to Itinerant Preachers and Catechists to go in to these

Parts, and be assisting to the Ministers established there. His Majesty

has impowered me to inform you, That he is firmly resolved to

promote and encourage as much as in him lyes, so good & pious a

design, And is therefore to order the Sum of One thousand Pounds

yearly to be appointed during His Royal pleasure and apply’d solely


29

for the Provision and Entertainment of such Itinerant Ministers &

Catechists as shall be employ’d in those Parts for the purposes

abovementioned, And that it is His Royal Will & Pleasure That the

said Sum of One thousand Pounds be distributed and apply’d by this

and Succeeding Assemblies or such persons as they shall authorize &

Appoint for the end aforesaid, And that a due State of the Distribution

be annually laid before the Lord High Treasurer Or the Lords

Commissioners of the Treasury for the time being, That His Majesty

may give such further directions as he shall think most proper for the

ends abovementioned. The Steps His Majesty is taking for the Peace

and Tranquillity of the Highlands will facilitate your doing of your

Duty in this important matter, And give you an opportunity by the

ways of Example, Persuasion, and Conviction to put some stop to the

spreading Ignorance and Profanness on the One hand, and the

trafficking of Popish Priests and Emissaries on the other, in the

Highlands and Islands. I know you will receive this great and fresh

Mark of His Majestie’s favour with all imaginable Gratitude, And that

you will take particular care of the Application of His Majestie’s Royal

Bounty to the pious ends for which it is design’d.

The representatives of the Church were indeed grateful for their new grant. Here is

part of the Moderator’s reply to the Commissioner:

May it please Your Grace. The mournful Ignorance and Profaneness,

and the Growth of Popery, especially in the remoter parts of this Land,

the Church of Scotland hath long complain’d of, with deep regrete; and

her Assemblies and Commissions have thought themselves obliged to

lay several Representations thereof before His Majesty; And His great

Goodness in bestowing so liberal A fund, as what Your Grace hath Just

now mentioned, for the encouragment of Ministers, Preachers, and

Catechists to instruct the people in these Parts, And to prevent their

being seduced and ruin’d by trafficking Priests and Popish Emissaries

gives us a surprizing Joy, beyond what we can express. And such a

liberal and well contrived Charity to Souls, We are persuaded, will be

graciously and bountifully rewarded by the God of Heaven, upon His

Majesty and His Royal Offspring, will make a Glorious and Shining

Part of His Majestie’s Illustrious character while he lives, and will be

remembered to the Honour of his Memory in after-ages. And we hope,

His Royal Bounty shall be managed by this and subsequent General

Assemblies in such a manner as to make it answer as far as possible,

His Majestie’s excellent and Christian design.

It is clear that the Church authorities thought long and hard about the grant; two days

later, in his reply to the king’s letter, the Moderator chose to stress the political

benefits which were like to flow from His Majesty’s gift:

it does afford us the greatest pleasure and encouragment to consider,

that by the Blessing of God on our endeavours, the same methods that

contribute to remove the Ignorance and Superstition of the rude

Inhabitants of those remote places, and to defeat the Attempts of


30

Popish Emissaries, must necessarly tend to impress them with

Sentiments of Loyalty towards Your Majesty, to promote the Interest

of your happy Government and Royal Family, and dispose them to

give a due & cheerful Obedience to Your Majesty, and the Just Laws,

to which all your Subjects ought to conform themselves.

On the 12 May there was read another petition from the Presbytery of Skye, a

progress report on the same theme as the previous year: although the new system of

organization was going well, the ministers were of course at loggerheads with their

Catholic rivals. It was suggested that General Wade might wish to give them some

military protection while they went about their business in Catholic areas.

Nevertheless, the ministers had been putting up a fight:

Yea the Priests have had the Boldness to send Challenges to Protestant

Ministers to dispute with them, And a Reverend Brother in their

bounds had a long and publick debate with one of them lately, And the

said Debate was written, And it is thought well worth Printing. And if

done, would be very useful in their Country, many of the people

desiring it, And it were a Pity that the said Reverend Brother were not

enabled to print the same.

The presbytery further requested that the Church allow that preachers and catechists

be appointed to travel to the Catholic islands in the Hebrides, and that they be given

an allowance to enable them to do so – in the same way as similar help had been

given to the Presbyteries of Strathbogie, Abernethy and Lorn the previous year. This

time, however, the General Assembly had a fresh card up their sleeves. The

Presbytery of Skye’s request was forwarded to a new committee, that for the

Management of His Majesty’s Royal Bounty:

And appoints them to take in the same at their first diet, And to do

what they Judge proper for the encouragment of the Synod of Glenelg,

and Presbyteries and Brethren in the bounds thereof, and for

suppressing Popery, And impowers the said Committee to grant an

Allowance to Ministers, Preachers and Catechists to travel in the

foresaid bounds.

On the same day another petition was read from the ministers of the Outer Hebrides,

the new Presbytery of Long Island. The ministers were suffering: "the Health of

Ministers is frequently impair’d ... Our number being small and all sickly because of

their extraordinary toil and fatigue within our oun bounds". They thus requested travel

expenses to pay for them to travel to Edinburgh. This too was referred to the new

Royal Bounty Committee: the General Assembly finally, then, had somewhere to

send troublesome Highland petitions. It is to this Committee, and how it wrestled with

the problems of administering the annual grant of one thousand pounds, that I shall

turn to for the next instalment.


31


This issue I will be taking a closer look at the rather chaotic first year of the Royal

Bounty Committee. As ever, the material seems to expand and fill up all available

space, but I hope that it will be of some interest to readers. More to follow!

The first attempts at administering the Royal Bounty

1725: too much too soon

On 18 May 1725, the day after the end of the General Assembly of the Church of

Scotland, the Committee for the Reforming of the Highlands and Islands and the

Management of the King’s Royal Bounty had its first meeting. Their task was as

follows:

to Appoint Itinerant Preachers and Catechists to go to the proper places

designed in His Majestie’s Warrant; And for that end they are carefully

to inform themselves of the fit places where the said Itinerant

Preachers are to be sent and employ’d, And of persons duly qualify’d

for that Service, of good Abilities for the same, of a pious Life &

Conversation, Prudent, of undoubted Loyalty to His Majesty, and

competently skill’d in the Principles of Divinity, And in Popish

Controversies.

The committee was to cooperate with local presbyteries, who would be responsible

for certifying and supervising the catechists, and with the committee of the SSPCK,

many of whom, crucially, would be the most assiduous attenders of the meetings of

the Royal Bounty Committee. The preachers’ duties were as much political as

religious:

And the said Preachers are also appointed to catechize, And both they

and the Catechists to instruct the people from house to house, and visit

the Sick, and in all their labours among the people to be careful to

teach them the Principles and Duties of the true Christian Protestant

Religion, And the Obligation they are under to Duty & Loyalty to Our

Sovereign King George, and Obedience to the Laws; And the

Committee are impowered to give them such Instructions as to their

Work and Behavior, as they shall Judge meet, And they are appointed

to obey the same.

The allowances for the missionaries were remarkably generous by later standards: a

preacher would earn up to £40 a year – an average salary for a minister – while a

catechist could expect up to £25, although special circumstances could push his salary

yet higher. The fund could also pay at the most £4 a month to ministers to go to areas

where they would baptize and marry. A subcommittee, which would meet every

week, was appointed to prepare a relevant report. Like the Commission of the Church

of Scotland, this particular subcommittee would meet in the hall of the SSPCK.


32

The subcommittee worked speedily, and three days later it presented the report. Its

members had read over the various presbyterial petitions and representations handed

in to previous General Assemblies and Commissions. They also drew upon the 1716

Register of Royal Commission which had been appointed by George I to enquire into

establishing schools in the Highlands, a hugely ambitious report which contained a

description of the region and its population, "Shewing where there are Papists and the

greatest Ignorance." The subcommittee listed the various Roman Catholic areas of the

Gàidhealtachd, and also stressed the importance of "Abertarff and the vast bounds of

the Presbytery of Gairloch [which] have very few Ministers, and Ignorance and

Barbarity abound therein". After the relevant areas had been enumerated, the

subcommittee turned to nominating the missioners themselves.

As well as the rather generous salaries it awarded, the first year of the Royal Bounty

administration is striking for the sheer confusion of its organisation, and its rather

hopeful and overambitious arrangements. The very first missionary scheme illustrates

this very well.

The Revs. Archibald MacLean in Mull and John Skeldoch of Kilmonivaig were to go

to supply the Garbh-Chrìochan, the Rough Bounds, before the 1 August 1725. Each

minister was to stay there for three months, being paid the regular £4 a month. While

they were absent, their parishes would be supplied by two probationers in Argyllshire,

Robert Fullartoun and James Campbell. After his three months were up, the Rev.

Archibald MacLean was to be succeeded in the Rough Bounds by the Rev. James

Gilchrist of Kilmallie, who would in turn stay there another three months, on the same

salary. The probationer Robert Fullartoun was thereupon to supply Kilmallie. The

Rev. John Skeldoch would be replaced in Ardnamurchan by the probationer James

Campbell, who was to remain there for three months, at the end of which he would

once more exchange posts with Skeldoch, and thus to continue for the remainder of

the year, unless the committee were to order otherwise. The Rev. John Skeldoch, who

had no stipend, nor any expectation of one in the near future, was to be given £24 as a

half year’s advance to enable him to undertake his mission. Again, a student of

divinity, Alexander Shaw, was to preach an entire year in the Rough Bounds, for £18

salary.

A fortnight later, after further representations, the committee decided to send the

unfortunate James Campbell to Appin and Glencoe as well as to Kilmonivaig. The

Presbytery of Gairloch, meanwhile, was to be supplied by a catechist, two itinerant

ministers and three parish ministers from the neighbouring Presbyteries of Ross and

Dornoch. The ministers were to travel to the west coast before the 1 July – giving

them about a month’s notice – and to remain there for three months, each receiving £4

a month as salary. In the ministers’ absence, their parishes were to supplied by their

presbyterial colleagues. After they had finished, two Skye ministers were to carry out

the same mission, under the same terms. If such arrangements proved impossible,

then the presbyteries themselves had the duty to supply replacement missionaries. In

addition, it was expected that all preachers and catechists were to be equipped with

two testimonials for the presbyteries they were sent to: "a Certificate upon trial, from

a Presbytery of this National Church, Of their Orthodoxy, Piety, Literature, Prudence

and other necessary Qualifications for the Work they are respective called unto; As

also An Authentick Certificate from a proper Judge of their Loyalty to His Majesty


33

King George and good Affection to His Royal Family and Protestant Succession

therein".

Of course, the system was totally unworkable. As soon as the news about the Royal

Bounty spread, a flood of petitions came in from synods, presbyteries, and individual

ministers, each claiming a share of the grant. However, the money was already

divided up; the funds could bear no more. To make matters worse, the notoriously

rapacious Barons of the Exchequer who were responsible for granting the Royal

Bounty decided to deduct a tax of 6d. in the pound. By August, barely three months

into the scheme, the committee were already thinking about shortening the times

allotted to their missioners. Demand for their services was just too high.

There was one major problem with the scheme: many of the missionaries nominated

were either unwilling or unable to bid farewell to their homes and families and spend

months travelling through rugged, unknown territory, among disaffected, hostile and

even dangerous inhabitants. It only needed one missioner to refuse his call for an

entire mission scheme to break down. For instance, the Rev. Walter Ross minister of

Creich informed the committee that a local student Murdo MacDonald was "very

averse from going in Mission to the Presbytery of Gairloch, for which he is

appointed". MacDonald asked to be excused, or else that a certain Andrew Robertson

probationer in Caithness might be named in his place (for which Robertson must have

been heartily grateful), or, otherwise, that he only preach in Coigeach and Assynt,

immediately to the west of what must have been his native parish of Creich.

The Presbytery of Lorn had even worse luck. By August, and then again in October, it

was enquiring why not one of the missioners appointed for the Rough Bounds had yet

arrived. The Rev. John Skeldoch of Kilmonivaig replied that he couldn’t leave his

parish because those appointed to supply him had not arrived. Alexander Shaw, the

probationer who had been appointed to preach in the Rough Bounds for a year, said

that as neither the ministers nor the probationer who had been ordered to go to the

region had gone, "he did not think it safe for him alone to go there, And besides he

Judged the Allowance granted him is not sufficient for his going to that Place". Shaw

was nevertheless ordered to repair forthwith to the bounds of the Presbytery of Lorn.

For those ministers and catechists who did go to preach, it was all too often a

dispiriting experience. A slightly later letter, written at Kenmore in Lochaber on 22

July 1726 by James Murray, is an excellent account of the difficulties the poor

missioners, used to more comfortable lives in the low-lying Gàidhealtachd

peripheries, or in the Lowland university towns, faced on their travels:

I must go wth a hired Sernt to carry My Cloaths viz shirts and Blankets

to lie in for here I must not expect to get bedcloaths, or bed in every

house I come to (though I find the people abundantly kind, as yet,

according to their ability) but they have for the most pt neither beds

nor bed-cloaths to themselves, except one plaid and one pair of

blanckets that the good-man & Good-wife have for their own bed wch

is a Sorry hand-full of Straw; heather, or fearns, shaken on the floor,

for none of the Common people have any bed-steeds of Timber or

feather or Chaff beds served up in Eeiking or Coars harn. I shall

endeavour to stay here as a Catechist, for one quarter, if the Lords be


34

pleased to spare me health and strength, though I should spend 6 lib.

ster: but I assure I will not continue any longer unless my allowance be

Augmented, for Mr Balladine, who was an Appointed Catechist for the

paroch of Kilmaly, only had 18 lib ster:

I cannot say that in weaty weather when I am treavling from town to

town in Winter that my foot will be drie from time that I rise and go

out in the morning, till I go to bed at night, for I have been so seall

days already in this Countrie, besides the weading of waters daily if I

treavel one mile of way, for there are no Bridges upon their Watters

here, and how it will agree with me every Cold, frosty, Snowy & weaty

night in the winter time it will agree with me every day to be

changeing my quarters, and every night my bed; and to lie in my own

Cloaths, which sometimes will be Weat and Cold, on a Sorry pickle of

neasty fearns &c – or handfull of Straw or heather time must

determine. I find that that the Common people here have, or at least

seem to have a great desire after, and a love to Spirituall things, and

wish well to King George and the Government for their bounty, and

they say that yr was never a King on the Throne yt showed such favour

to the Hillands.

Other missionaries were not only uncomfortable, but were in danger of their very

lives. In a letter of February 1726, Murdo MacLeod minister of Glenelg told how

"Fire was in the Night time set to the House where Mr Archibald McQueen & Mr

Norman Mccleod Ministers sent in Mission were lodged, And that if by the Good

Providence of God, it had not been timeously discovered, they might have perished in

the Flames". The following year the unfortunate James Johnston, a catechist in the

bounds of the north-east Presbytery of Alford, sent a letter to the committee "Shewing

that he had got an house in that Country with great Difficulty, But that in his Absence

Some People had taken off the Roof thereof, and he Craves advice What to do

thereanent". The Committee kept their distance and "Left him to pursue these Who

had done the Injury as Law directs."

Meanwhile, other young ministers on probation who had begun to preach were

immediately snapped up by the presbyteries to whose bounds they had been sent, a

turn of events which had been foreseen by the Royal Bounty Committee from the

beginning: "the Committee’s Appointment shall be no impediment to their accepting

thereof, And that thereupon they are free to leave the Places they are sent to". The

best-qualified and most able employees of the Royal Bounty scheme had thus to be

replaced by inferior catechists. It is hardly surprising then that by November

Archibald Bannatyne, a very able young man who was serving as a catechist in

Lochaber, was pressing for a pet scheme of his, a two-tier scheme of catechists, "that

some of smaller Abilities may serve in that place to go from house to house to learn

the people the Ten Commands and first Principles of Religion, and the Catechism by

heart, to prepare them for others of greater Abilities, And that such may be had for

Fourty, Fifty or Sixty Pounds scots yearly, who may be maintain’d as to their diet in

the families they come to". Twelve pounds Scots, incidentally, was the equivalent of

only one pound sterling.


35

By November the Royal Bounty Committee, "finding that diverse of the Missioners

have not as yet obey’d, that some of them are otherways disposed of, and cannot

obey, And that others who have gone to the Places design’d have not stay’d out their

full time", decided to grant no further allowances in advance.

The system was evidently in trouble, nowhere more so than in the Presbytery of

Gairloch, taking in the troubled districts of Wester Ross, Lochalsh and Kintail, a

jacobite heartland many of whose inhabitants had taken part in the Risings of 1715

and 1719, and had still been in open rebellion against crown representatives barely

four years previously.

Local problems:

If the establishing of the Presbytery of Gairloch in 1724 was meant to increase the

authority of the church on Wester Ross, it appeared to be tending to exactly the

opposite result. At the General Assembly of 1725, the Synod of Ross and Sutherland

presented a petition. In it, they described how they "were inclined cheerfully to

accquiesce in the Erection of the New Synod of Glenelg", expecting "that in this

Countrey we would be freed of the disturbing Opposition, Influence and Power of

those in these Parts, who have signalized themselves by their Disaffection to Our

happie Constitution in Church and State". Instead, the weakness of and the hardships

suffered by the two ministers who constituted the new presbytery to the west, "And

the encouragment taken from the Impunity of those who do oppose them, does

encrease Opposition and Disaffection within the bounds of this Synod, and

Grievances insupportable are thrown upon such of our Members as are upon their

Confines". In other words, the Presbytery of Gairloch was quite inadequate, was

unable to exert its authority, and the resulting disturbances in its bounds were now

spilling over into the parishes on its eastern border as well. In addition, the Rev.

James Smith, minister of Gairloch, had been threatening for two years to leave his

parish, given his mere 600 merks stipend, and his total lack of a manse, glebe, or

roofed kirk.

Something would obviously have to be done, but the preachers who were ordained as

new ministers for the presbytery, Archibald Bannatyne in Lochbroom and Aeneas

Sage in Lochcarron, were soon caught up in their own struggles for stipends and other

ministerial dues from the recalcitrant heritors. Although the Presbytery of Gairloch,

and indeed the Synod of Glenelg as a whole, was supposedly the focus of the Royal

Bounty Committee’s efforts, the understandable reluctance of preachers to travel

there, and the slow and tedious legal processes the church was forced to go through in

order to obtain their stipends, led to increasing tensions with Edinburgh, tensions

which would eventually flare up into open disagreement.

If some preachers were extremely unwilling to undertake their mission, others were

much more aggressive. The most gung-ho of them all was the Presbytery of

Strathbogie in the north-east, whose ministers had been prosecuting a long and bitter

feud with Alexander, second duke of Gordon, the most influential Scots Catholic of

the day. Thanks to the huge and scattered estates he either owned or of which he was

the superior, the duke of Gordon was able to promote Catholicism across great

swathes of the country, from the Spey right through Badenoch to Lochaber. The duke

protected the priests who worked on his estates, and was patron of the Catholic


36

seminary at the Scalan in Glenlivet. The local presbyterian ministers had long chafed

at his open support for Roman Catholicism. The Royal Bounty gave them the

opportunity and the excuse to take their struggle almost right into the duke’s own

household.

At the beginning of September 1725 two men employed by the Royal Bounty

Committee, the Rev. Walter Morison and the catechist Patrick Duncan, began to

preach in St. Ninian’s, the duke of Gordon’s private chapel, near Fochabers. This

evidently created a great stir in the neighbourhood, for a couple of days later the earl

of Findlater sent a letter post-haste to the duke, sympathising with him and pledging

his support in trying to prevent a similar occurrence the following Sunday. Findlater

had been the King’s Commissioner to the General Assembly the previous year, where

he had been urged to take action against popery; however, he was also sheriff of

Banffshire, and public order was evidently uppermost in his mind:

I am extreamly concerned that Your Grace meets with any trouble of

this kind I did tell Mr Kerr that You woud not alou them to come ther

again and advised them not to attempt it He said He did not know what

they would doe, al I wish is that in defending Your Graces possession

ther may be ass litle violence and dissorder as possible this is al I

know, and the sooner You accquant them of Your resolutions it is the

better

The draft of Gordon’s reply is somewhat ominous:

I was in hopes as Sherriff you would allow No Ryots But since your

Authority is Not thought sufficient I will give a litle Necessary

Concurrence but shall take care it be legall I shall not trouble Mr

Gilchrist with any Demands of liberty to protect my own property

Since No Necessity Nor I hope Never will to cringe in the least to any

such.

However, whatever measures the duke planned taking, it is unlikely that he approved

of the full-scale riot which took place the following Sunday. Morison, Duncan and the

local SSPCK schoolmaster William Scobie were ambushed at the chapel by a sizeable

mob. According to the Committee’s report, they badly beat the preachers and those in

the congregation:

with great clamour, rage, and fury to the Effusion of the Blood, and

Danger of the Lives of many of them, Uttering many execrable Oaths,

and cursing the foresaid Preacher and his Congregation, and

reproaching Our Holy Religion, and swearing it shall never get footing

there, And after they had violently dispersed the people who came to

hear the Word, they did pursue the Preacher and them with the foresaid

Weapons for near a mile of Way, through the several roads by which

they were oblig’d to flee to save their Lives, And while the said Mr

Archibald Anderson and others of the persons abovenamed and

complained upon, were in pursute of the said Mr Walter and the other

persons who came to the foresaid place for Worship, they cry’d after

them, Saying Dogs, Dogs you shall dy this minute


37

The "rabbling" at St Ninian’s became something of a cause célebre among church

circles. Representations concerning the riot were presented at the very highest level of

government in London, and eventually five of the rioters were charged in Edinburgh.

However, only one of them was actually convicted, and that probably more for his

position as the duke’s man rather than for any actual involvement in the affray. The

authorities were prepared to make an example of one man as a warning, but it is clear

that they were not prepared to encourage the local church authorities to carry out

further provocations. By spring 1727, the other rioters, after lying low for a while, "do

notwithstanding live and reside in Safety in the forsaid Country, going to Mercats,

and other publick places avowedly".

The St Ninian’s riot is merely the most notable and spectacular of a number of

Catholic actions taken in response to what might be described as the more proactive

policy taken by the missioners of the Royal Bounty. Church documents of this period

are crammed with references to growing "popish insolence" from the Catholic

population they were trying to convert. The Catholic population, of course, saw things

rather differently. What is clear that during these years both sides, and indeed the

episcopalian church too, were intensifying their missionary efforts. To a large degree

this escalation was as a response to their rivals. The process of "confessionalization",

through whatever denomination, was spreading to all parts of the Gàidhealtachd. Like

it or not, everyone was being forced to take sides.

The most spectacular protestant coup of this time was the conversion of the people of

the Island of Rum by its then landlord Hector MacLean younger of Coll. The Rev.

Daniel MacAulay, the very competent minister of Bracadale in Skye, had been sent as

a missioner to the Small Isles by the Royal Bounty Committee. He reported as

follows:

as to the Isles of Cana and Roum to which he was sent, He represented

that he had no Access in Cana to deal with the people, Because they

would not hear him, being under the Influence of Priests and Popish

Managers and dare not hear a Protestant Minister preach or pray; But

in the Isle of Roum, the Reformation goes on successfully by the Zeal

of their Worthy Superior Hector McLean of Coll, which should be duly

noticed by the Church and other good friends of the Government to

encourage others to follow his laudable Example; For about three years

ago there were few Protestants in the Isle of Roum And new there is

only One little Family and some silly Women there continuing under

Antichristian Delusion.

This was what was later described to Dr. Samuel Johnson as creideamh a’ bhata

bhuidhe, the religion of the yellow cane. Whether Hector MacLean did indeed drive

the entire population with a gold-topped cane to listen to the minister, or whether he

in fact just used his stick to beat a single zealous Catholic, the laird of Coll

nevertheless became something of a hero to the church authorities. In the absence of

support from distant local magistrates, Hector MacLean was a beacon of support. He

had shown what could be achieved by a well-affected and none too scrupulous

landowner, indeed – perhaps – how easy it would be to convert erstwhile Catholic

Gaels as long as their papist superiors could be got disposed of. MacAulay and other

ministers encouraged the committee in fantasies that they might, with suitable legal


38

support, be rid of Catholic heritors and thus spread the Reformation in earnest. There

was, however, a great deal of difference between the relatively small, isolated island

of Rum, and the wider and wealthier estates of Clan Ranald, for instance. Despite

official support from the earl of Ilay himself, early eighteenth-century realpolitik

meant that such a project was bound to come to nothing. Hector MacLean, however,

must have had an enjoyable few years, being invited to the General Assembly to tell

his story, and being sent as a ruling elder to the Synod of Glenelg to encourage them

in their labours.

The Royal Bounty Committee and the SSPCK

We have already seen how SSPCK schoolteacher William Scobie was present at the

St Ninian’s rabbling, and indeed how the Royal Bounty Committee shared many,

perhaps a majority of its members with the charity-school organisation. The Society

in Scotland for the Propagating of Christian Knowledge was a joint-stock charity

whose task was to set up charity schools in the Highlands. Founded in 1709 following

the jacobite invasion scare of the previous year, the society was a zealous and

extremely well-motivated organization, which over a decade and a half had developed

sophisticated techniques for raising donations. The 1714 Account of the rise,

constitution and management, of the Society in Scotland, for Propagating Christian

Knowledge is a good case in point. Not only does the little booklet give potential

donors an instant guide to the constitution, aims and successes of the organization, it

also by way of thanks and encouragement lists those who have already given money.

Just as the Church of Scotland had passed a whole raft of anti-Catholic measures as a

result of the Atterbury Plot, the SSPCK used it as an opportunity to try to attract more

money, lobbying the government in an attempt – unsuccessfully as it turns out – to

secure the grant of the up to £20,000 it felt it was due from income from the Forfeited

Estates. A memorial concerning the state of the Highlands was composed and printed

in 1723, luridly warning that:

untill methods be fallen upon to Civilize and Instruct them, and

extirpate the Irish Language from amongst them that Great Britain will

alwayes be in most evident danger, ffor as these people will never fail

to Join with fforreign popish powers, to advance the Interests they have

espoused, So they alwayes have been, and infalliblie will be

Instruments and Tools in the hands of those who have a design to

enslave or embroil the British nation.

Force would be no use; rather the government should persist in

the instructing and training up of that poor, Ignorant and deluded

people in the knowledge of the Principles of the Reformed Protestant

Religion and of vertue ffor were their Judgement and Consciences

rightly informed, those people would soon throw off the yokes which

those who now usurp unlimited authoritie over them, have Laid upon

them, especially when they shall come to deserve and feel the benefite

of Protection from the Government.


39

At the same time, the society was refining its management methods: its meetings were

to be more streamlined, while inspection and surveillance of its schools was to be

stepped up, with the use of English being encouraged. They themselves began lobby

operations to identify potential donors in London, suggested that well-wishers might

donate shares in the projected new fishery company, and indeed approached the

government, unsuccessfully as it turned out, for a yearly fund out of the Royal

Bounty.

Three weeks after the Bounty Committee was established, the SSPCK nominated a

group of four of their members who also sat on the church committee to act as go-

betweens; two months later, they presented a memorial to their colleagues. Crucially,

the committee of the society had decided to follow the example of the Royal Bounty

in redistributing its schools, informing them on 13 August 1725 that:

Bearing that there are many more Places needing and craving Schools,

And that the Society being desireous to make the benefite of their

Funds as extensive as they could, had been obliged upon the Death or

Removal of Schoolmasters to diminish the Salaries formerly in use to

be paid, in order to have the more Schools, And also to remove the

Masters from place to place, after they have been three or more years

therein, And yet they are not in case to answer all the Demands that are

made; But having had Information concerning the State of the Parishes

of Kilmanivaig, Gairloch and South Uist, With the Isles of Coll, Tirree,

Egg, Roum, Muck and Canan and Country of Glenstrafarer, And being

informed That there is a mixture of Protestants in South Uist,

Kilmanivaig, Glenstrafarer, and in the Isles of Muck, Roum, Egg and

Cana, And that now Southuist has given a Call to One to be their

Minister, That one is lately settled in Kilmanivaig, And that these of

the foresaid four Isles are about calling One, As likewise that Preachers

and Catechists are sent to these Places, The Committee of the said

Society Judged this a proper Season of sending Schoolmasters thither,

Seeing Ministers, Preachers & Catechists may very much encourage

the Schools, And have therefore under consideration the providing of

these Places with Schoolmasters and Books, tho’ they should sink their

Schools in other places where they are not so needful

In other words, the SSPCK was altering its scheme in order to collaborate with that of

the Royal Bounty Committee (rather ironically, given that in four years’ time the

Royal Bounty Committee would eventually alter their own scheme to accommodate

that of the SSPCK). Perhaps an idea of the society’s eventual aim is hinted at in the

request which follows:

And the said Committee of the Society Shew’d That they had laterly

settled One Mr John Ewing in the Country of Ranoch, and allow’d him

One hundred Merks, And the Lady Weem out of her Concern for the

Good of that Country had agreed to give him Fifty Merks, But he

having a numerous family cannot live upon so small An Allowance in

that place, And the Society are not now in case to give him more,

unless they disappoint one of the Popish Places abovementioned,

wherein they design to settle Schools; And seeing the said Mr John


40

Ewing is willing upon the Saturdays afternoon, And upon the Lord’s

Days to travel from house to house as a Catechist in that Country, And

in Summer to go the Shields, And may be very useful therein, the

parish being very wide, It is craved He may on that Account have Ten

Pounds Sterling more allow’d him for his further encouragment, And

there was produced a Letter from Doctor Dundas Præses of the said

Committee, Also A Memorial from Sir Robert Menzies of Weem to

the same purpose, And a Representation from the Presbytery of

Dunkeld, Giving an Account of the State of Ranoch and other Places in

their bounds

Given the stress they put on the fact that they had backing from both local church and

local landowner, the Society appear to have been rather nervous about making their

proposal. Nevertheless, it was accepted by the Royal Bounty Committee, and thus

John Ewing became the first, but by no means the last, schoolteacher-catechist jointly

employed by both organizations. But no general principle was set down: during the

first few years of its operation the Royal Bounty Committee viewed the SSPCK

schoolmasters as being complementary to the catechists rather than possibly one and

the same. For instance, on the very same day as the SSPCK memorial was read, the

Presbytery of Kincardine O’Neil’s application for additional missionaries was turned

down because "the Society for Christian knowledge have three Charity Schools

therein." As for the wild country of Rannoch, John Ewing did not even last a year

there, demitting his post in the summer of 1726.


41


The Royal Bounty 1726-1728: trouble on the horizon

The second year of the Royal Bounty Committee saw a general hardening of attitudes

among both committee members and those clergymen who served "on the front line",

as it were. The conversion of Catholics and indeed Episcopalians to Presbyterianism

was by no means as easy a matter as had been imagined. At the same time, the church

in the Gàidhealtachd began to work ever more closely with the new army garrisons

under General Wade. Continuing "insolence" from papists in the Rough Bounds, for

instance, led the Presbytery of Lorn to lobby the church for official support for plans

to settle entire military garrisons in their territory, in order to protect projected

plantations of Protestants.

At the same time, the question of stipends – ministerial salaries – became ever more

acute. Several of the newly-planted ministers in the western Gàidhealtachd owed their

position to having been sent up in the first place as Royal Bounty missionaries. They

found themselves serving in parishes where they were quite devoid of any financial

support, and naturally turned to their erstwhile sponsors, the Royal Bounty

Committee, for assistance. Ironically, they had been better off before, as mere salaried

preachers. In this regard, we should remember that one of the reasons the bounty was

requested in the first place was to help to pay for ministers’ stipends and for the

creation of new parishes. To be fair, the Royal Bounty Committee did what it could,

but was in no position to speed up the painfully slow processes against recalcitrant

heritors. The committee’s refusal to bend its rules meant that they had constantly to

turn down requests for money. At the same time, the exasperated ministers saw that

those missionaries who had been despatched to help them simply did not turn up.

Finally, the Royal Bounty Committee were now receiving reports about how their

missionaries were performing. For example, Alexander Leask had been a missionary

in the Presbytery of Turriff from June to October 1726. But having received a letter

and a certificate from him, the committee:

did take Notice that there was nothing in the forsaid Letter or

Certificate of Mr Leask’s Visiting families or Catechising, Nor

Dealling with Papists for their Conversion, But only of his Preaching,

which Seems not fully to Answer the Design of His Majestie’s Grant,

Nor Acts of the General Assembly made thereanent; And Finding that

other Certificates Bear nothing of Visiting Families and Catechising.

The Committee Appointed that Letters be wrote to the Presbyteries

Concern’d, To which Missionaries are Sent, Acquainting them of this,

And that it is not the Design of His Majestie’s Gift to Ease Ministers of

their work, But that all Missionaries, Ministers and Probationers

should travel from House to House, visiting and Catechising; And

Presbyteries are to Enquire if they do so, And Certifie them as it shall

be found they Deserve.


42

At the next meeting Aeneas Sage on behalf of the Presbytery of Gairloch complained

"that the Probationers formerly there, were very Slight in their work, never having

Catechised among the People, which should have been a great part of their Work, And

it is Proposed that no Money be given to Probationers, But such as are attested to be

Qualified According to Law".

The committee was not only cracking down on catechists, but also on any presbyteries

who certified catechists without its permission in the first place. Immediately after

reading Leask’s letter, the members:

Finding that Diverse Presbyterys having Employed Catechists without

any Warrand from this Committee, And then Demanding Allowance

from the time of their Entry, when the Committee have already

Exhausted the Grant by their own Appointments, Do Therefore order

that Letters be wrote to the Presbyerys Concern’d, Acquainting them,

That the Committee will grant no Salaries Nor Allowances to any, But

such as Serve upon the Committee’s orders, and only for that time,

According to their own Regulations.

The rules were to be tightened up: presbytery certificates, it was decided, were now to

"Bear a Clause that the Missionaries Do Catechise the People, going from House to

House for that end, And that they are Qualifyed to the Government." It is important to

note that the committee itself was trying to set its own house in order, especially

through trying to put its chaotic accounts in order by making it a rule that all salaries

should now commence on the 1 November.

More conscientious missionaries, however, were refining their own techniques, with

favourable results. For instance, it is clear that Walter Morison, who we have met

already being rabbled after preaching at St Ninian’s Chapel, was learning caution. In a

letter of 7 December 1726 the Rev. James Lautie, moderator of the Presbytery of

Fordyce praised him "As a Person with whose Abilities, Managment and Prudent

Behaviour, They own themselves to be more and more Satisfied, Yea even the

Generality of the Dissaffected in that Country, Are obliged to give him a good

testimony, And he has been already Instrumental in Reclaiming Severals from the

Popish Errors, And Engadgeing some Disaffected Persons to Attend Gospel

Ordinances". Morison was thereupon given a rise in salary for his pains. In a later

letter, written on 19 October 1727, he describes his methods. They are worth quoting

in full for the details they give about how the cunning catechist went about his

business:

Shewing that he had for sometime past been making as Narrow

Observation in travelling among that People, as he could, and can say,

with Confidence, Blessed be God, that matters begin to mend

somewhat, tho’ it’s true there are not many reclaim’d from Popery, not

above Nine, Since he came to that Place, Yet Apostacy is not now

frequent, there not having been any Save One, and that ane Heretor

agaisnt whom (after he would no ways hearken to, Yea not hear of

Instruction, or Argument on that Point) Process is going on, That he

the said Mr Morison in his last Travells ffound some more Success,

ffor he had Access to Seven or Eight ffamilies of the Papists, who


43

Joined in Prayer with Considerable Insinuations of Kindness, The

Method he took, was not so much Directly to Attack their Errors by

running them down as Errors, As by insisting on the Truths of the

Christian Religion, where he had Sufficient Occasion in another form

to do it, and by this way of doing, he found most of the Common

People turning really Protestants in Many Points of our ffaith, and even

those which are most ffundamental. Another way he used which he

ffound very taking both with the Prelatical ffamilies and with Papists,

was to take a Zealous Concern about their Children at Schools, and

otherways by frequent Examining them there, and reporting to their

Parents, By letting Pennys fall to the Young ones, and Complementing

them with little Books, which for Ordinary he does, and hears them

read, Examines them, and prescribes them Tasks of the Catechism, By

which Means, there is Even an Emulation rising among Several of the

Young People And our Catechism comes to be read, and Mandate by

many Young ones, and old People hears it, and delights to hear their

Children so perform, and ffinding this a very successful Mean, he

inclines to improve it more and more, though it be with some

Expences, He shews that there are many of the Common People

Papists on the Confines where the throng of the Papists are, who

plainly own it was the great distance from the Church, that made them

take the Nearest, Thus the Priests have improven Mightily, For to the

two Priests and their Catechists who have for a Long time lived in

good dwellings on the Confines of the said Parishes, another Priest

from Fochabers is come, and taken up another house, upon another

part of the Extremitys of these parishes, And that it is Lamentable that

there they should have their Abodes, and that he has none, But is

Obliged to travel at such a distance When Severals do declare that had

they a near Occasion of a Protestant Kirk they would attend it

Meanwhile, under rather trying circumstances, the newly ordained Rev. Archibald

Bannatyne in Lochbroom had been doing his best:

to Reduce that People to order: And Besides the Catechist he had from

the Committee, he had sent out other three to teach the People the

Creed, the ten Commands, and some of the Questions of the

Catechism; That he had got some stop to the Setting of Netts, Carrying

of Loads, and travelling on the Lord’s Day, Had prevailed with some

Selected Persons in the Remote Corners of the Parish to Read the

Scriptures, and tell the People the History of the Bible by way of Tale

to their Neighbours upon Winter nights and Sabbath Days, and had

Convinced the People how much it is their Duty and Interest to Attend

thereunto; And he writes that he is hopefull that the good effect thereof

may be Seen in a Competent time, But wanting a Maintainance he

would be obliged to Raise a process, which he is affraid will Spoill all,

and Living is dear in that Country, So that he is a very great object of

Pity as now Stated .

In its report to the General Assembly of May 1727, the committee stressed how it was

necessary for it to keep a close eye on the missionaries it employed. Many of the


44

itinerant ministers who had been sent out had been called to parishes, so it was

increasingly having to rely upon untried probationers and catechists. Especially

recommended for support were the "front-line" Presbyteries of Gairloch, Abertarff

and Lorn. The resistance which the clergy was encountering from priests and Catholic

heritors led the committee to take an even harder line than before, not only in urging

legal action against papists, but in taking up the Presbytery of Lorn’s recommendation

for military garrisons to protect projected new Protestant colonies. A special plea was

made "That Persons well Acquainted with the Popish Controversies be named to go to

these Countries where Popery does abound, both Ministers, Probationers and well

Qualified Catechists, to Remain for some time among them, To Instruct them in the

Principles of the true Religion" Meanwhile:

some of the Missionaries give it as their Opinion, That their Staying

too short a time in One place, seems not so well to answer the design,

But that Catechists especially should remain in one place till they had

learn’d a competent number of the people therein, to repeat the Shorter

Catechism, and to understand it in some measure, And that being done,

One in a Family may help to learn another, which will make way for

Ministers and Preachers doing the more good when they come to

visite, Catechise and preach, And Ministers to baptise or perform other

Duties of their Function; For it is not to be expected, that Ministers can

stay so long in a family as to learn the people therein, the whole

Catechism, But the Catechists may do it, And the longer they remain

among a people, And the more intimate and familiar they are with

them, They, if prudent have the better Access to do good, And thus in

Winter Nights in houses, And in Summer in the Shealls, the people

may be receiving Instruction with little diversion from their work, And

so when the poor people can repeat part of the Catechism, and answer

some Questions therein, it encourages both themselves and others to

appear before the Minister, whereas when they can not do so, they are

ashamed to attend, And if they do, and can say nothing, they are

dash’d, and it discourages them & others present from attending the

Means of Instruction.

During the latter half of 1727 the Royal Bounty Committee continued to have

problems with recruiting qualified missionaries for the project. They were having to

fall back upon catechists, yet at the same time they had greatly overstretched the

funds. Certainly, they had boasted at that year’s General Assembly that they had been

able to reduce many catechists’ salaries. The consequence was, however, that it was

growing ever harder to recruit suitable young men, many with families, who were

willing to undergo the trials and tribulations of working in rough country among a

hostile population, and – most crucially of all – were sufficiently qualified to pass the

high standards of the Royal Bounty Committee. In a letter of 19 August 1727 the Rev.

Donald MacLeod moderator of the Presbytery of Long Island represented "that it was

impracticable to find out in that Country persons every way Qualified according to the

Committee’s regulations to Serve for so small Sallarys as what is allowed this Year".

At the same meeting a letter of 4 October from Charles Stewart Clerk to the

Presbytery of Kintyre was read, "Shewing that they have no Probationers in the

Bounds of their Synod which makes them almost despair of getting one to send to

Jura, And therefore proposing that Catechists may be sent upon the ffund designed for


45

Probationers". On 26 October the Presbytery of Dornoch wrote that they were very

disappointed that the catechist of Clyne and Kildonan was not receiving £10 any

more, "and how much the poor man formerly Imploy’d is discouraged being deprived

of Bread for himself and ffamily without timeous Advertisement, and that none can

serve for ffour or ffive Pound Sterling there". There were certainly a dozen young

students with Gaelic who were applying for bursaries at this time, but although the

General Assembly made up a list of the bursaries which were then operative, very few

were available.

The most pressing problem was continuing dissatisfaction among the ministers of the

Synod of Glenelg. At the General Assembly of 1727, on the day following the

nomination of a new Royal Bounty Committee, the Presbytery of Gairloch had

handed in a complaint, saying that they had scarcely any help from the Royal Bounty

missionaries, that those who had had barely been paid because of the great distance

from Edinburgh, that it was difficult to get the relevant legal testificates for their

choice of missionaries, and that they had become objects of derision among their own

parishioners. Despite the great majority vote of the commission of the church to

transport the Rev. Donald MacLeod from Contin to Lochalsh in the presbytery, even

at the risk of offending Colin Mackenzie of Coul, one of the most staunch supporters

of the presbyterian church in Wester Ross, the ministers of the Presbytery of Gairloch

continued to complain that the Edinburgh authorities were doing little or nothing to

expedite the legal processes for their stipends. The situation was worsened by the

"Vigorous Attempt made to pervert the Protestants in Kintail by Mr Alexander

McCraw a Popish Priest who Resides in Straglass, where he has perverted upwards of

Six hundred People". Alexander MacRae was ideal for the Catholic cause in Kintail,

being a member of the dominant MacRae kindred there, and, according to a letter

from the Synod of Glenelg of 11 July 1727, it was not long before he had won:

An Auditory of some Scores of People in that Parish, and had baptised

several Children according to the Rites of the Church of Rome, And

that there are Several Families transported from Straglass a Popish

Country to Kintail, And that if some stop be not put thereto, This Jesuit

and his Abettors will in a short time diffuse the Poison of his

Idolatrous Religion, through the bounds of the Presb of Gairloch,

where the people are generally very ignorant

As well as MacRae, the Presbytery of Gairloch were also under threat from renewed

episcopalian missionary work, led by the old rogue and character the Rev. Angus

Morison, brother of the famous poet An Clàrsair Dall, the Blind Harper.

The constant barrage of letters from the Synod of Glenelg concerning the lack of

support they felt from the Royal Bounty certainly had an effect on the committee. By

April 1728 the members were recommending in their report to the General Assembly

the following month that preachers and catechists should be withdrawn from small

parishes with few Roman Catholics in their bounds, "and that a Special Regard be had

To the Bounds of the New Synod of Glenelg, Where Parishes are very Large, and

Severals of them Vacant, and Where Popery and Ignorance does most abound, and

Ministers have Small Stipends and Want Parochial Schools, and are under many

Grievances and great discouragments". This "Special consideration" was agreed in the

Royal Bounty scheme for 1728 drawn up on 22 May: an entire day was spent on the


46

demands of the Synod of Glenelg. So much money was given to them that "there will

be a Necessity to Reduce part of what was granted formerly to some places, and

withdraw wholly what was given to some others." However, within barely six months

the committee and the Synod of Glenelg would be almost at daggers drawn.


47


Crisis and Co-operation: the Royal Bounty 1728-9

A partnership with the SSPCK?

The latter half of 1728 saw further tightening up of the rules of the Royal Bounty

Committee. To a large extent this was due to the fright the committee got when they

handed in the 1727 accounts to the government auditors, the Barons of the Exchequer.

The barons promptly and rather maliciously – for the first time ever – refused to ratify

them, on the grounds that the committee had (mis)used some of the Royal Bounty to

pay retainers to the clerk, the doorkeeper, and for stationery expenses. In some

confusion, the committee decided to try to draw these personal payments out of an

already existing £500 church fund, an attempt which was successful the following

year. The committee were obviously rather rattled about the state of their accounts,

however, and stressed to presbyteries that the relevant certificates and receipts must

be received before the 1 December 1728, "Seing at that time The Committee’s

Accounts to be Revised and Errors therein or Mismanagment may Reflect on the

Church, and be the Occasion of Withdrawing this ffund."

While the delegation from the committee argued their case with the Barons of

Exchequer, the latter made a rather crucial suggestion: that "also it might be humbly

desired, that his Majesty would allow some part of this ffund of One Thousand

Pounds Sterling, to be bestowed for Charity Schools, which was formerly

Demanded." The committee were certainly not averse to considering such a

suggestion. Most of them were members of the SSPCK as well, and thus committed to

the charity school movement, and convinced of its value. Ever since the very first year

of the Royal Bounty, there had been some degree of co-operation with the SSPCK,

with certain of the latter’s schoolmasters being paid to catechize for the Bounty on

weekends. Because the 1728 scheme had spent much of the Royal Bounty upon the

Synod of Glenelg, new corners had to be cut in other areas of the Gàidhealtachd. One

way of getting around this problem was to try to make the local SSPCK schoolmasters

do the catechizing for them, a patently unsatisfactory solution nevertheless resorted to

in the schemes for presbyteries of Kincardine O’Neil, Fordyce, Aberlour and

Abernethy.

The Royal Bounty Committee composed a memorial to the Barons of the Exchequer,

in which the members requested that the barons try to secure a change in the terms of

the royal grant. The language used, and the anti-Gaelic ideology lying behind it, is not

at all what we might expect of the committee; it is, however, most typical of the

SSPCK:

And because it is Evident that the teaching the People in the highlands

and Islands to read the Scriptures in the English Language is the only

solid Foundation of all ffuture Instruction in Christian Knowledge and

will tend to Extirpate the Irish Language, which much Obstructs the

Civilizing of that People Therefore the Committee also begs, that Your

Lordships will be Pleas’d to Procure, That the Maintaining of Charity


48

Schools in the Highlands and Islands, and furnishing Necessary Books

for Teaching them to read the Scriptures, and understand the Principles

of the Protestant Reform’d Religion, may be Added to the Purposes for

which the said Royal Bounty is bestow’d

The barons replied on 12 July 1728. It was not for them, they said, to apply for

changes in the terms of the grant; rather, it was a matter for the Church of Scotland, to

be discussed either at its quarterly Commission, or at the annual General Assembly.

After lengthy discussion, the committee decided not to apply for an alteration in the

grant; nonetheless, they began to make moves towards an even closer rapprochement

with the SSPCK:

And that as to maintaining of Schools in the Highlands and Islands the

places most needing the same this Committee shall keep a

Correspondence thereanent with the Society for Propagating Christian

Knowledge, and their Committee and Concert Measures, about their

Schoolmasters being employed as Catechists upon the Saturndays &

Lord’s Day and other times when their Scholars are not at School and

that this Committee Grant some Allowance to them, upon that head.

In a memorial to General Wade composed in August 1728, requesting military help to

capture Catholic priests, and asking for his help in strengthening government

authority in the Gàidhealtachd, the Royal Bounty Committee closely followed the line

of the SSPCK; indeed, the society was given paeans of praise:

The Abovementioned Society have now for Near twenty Years past

had many Schools Scattered in the Most Barbarous Corners, which

have had Desireable Success in teaching the Rising Generation

Reading, Writing, Arithmetick, and the Principles of Religion, Virtue

and Loyalty, and likewise to Speak the English Language; great Care is

taken by them, that such as they Employ to teach, be well Affected to

his Majesty, and his Illustrious Royal Protestant ffamily. The

Judicatorys likewise of this Church, have very Carefully Laboured to

Procure Legal Schools to be Errected in many Parishes of the

Highlands, where there were never any Schools before, and are still

going on, to obtain More, But the Reforming and Civilizing the

Highlands and Islands, will be a Work of time, It is now happily

begun, and if the helps already Afforded be continued and some other

things that are hereafter humbly Propos’d be granted, it will make a

Remarkable tho’ Gradual Progress to the Strengthening of his

Majesty’s Govt Notwithstanding the Restless Endeavours of it’s

Enemies who deall in their Power to Oppose and Retard it. These

Schools, and other Means of Instruction spoken of, will through the

Blessing of God in Due time Remove the Ignorance & Barbarity of the

Poorer Sort, But it is a Loss that for furder improving these of a higher

Rank and of more than Ordinary pregnant Spirits, there are not some

few Grammar Schools set up, in the most Populous Places.

The committee were not the only ones, however, who were planning to make new

changes in the rules of the Royal Bounty Committee. At that very same meeting the


49

members received a seemingly innocent letter from Rev. Donald MacLeod moderator

of the Synod of Glenelg. The minister requested that a copy of the original Royal

Grant and the committee’s rules be sent to them as soon as possible. Suspecting

nothing, the committee complied with MacLeod’s request.

Double dealing by the Synod of Glenelg

In fact, for some time the Synod of Glenelg had been running out of patience with the

Royal Bounty Committee. The first hint that its attitude to the committee was fast

deteriorating comes in a rather cantankerous letter written by the Rev. Aeneas Sage to

Professor Hamilton – and pointedly not to the committee – on 6 September 1728. In

the letter Sage once more complained about the unpaid ministerial stipends owed to

him, but this time hinted that the reason that legal pressure was not being brought to

bear upon the recalcitrant heritors – the local landlords who should have been paying

Sage’s salary – was that the agent of the church, Nicol Spence, was simply not doing

his job. Spence defended himself spiritedly, alleging that to some extent it was Sage’s

own unreasonable desire to push back the augmentation of his stipend right to the date

of his admission which was to blame for the delay. There were only two Barons of

Exchequer in Scotland all last winter, meaning that they were not quorate to grant

petitions, while the process was now being considered by the Lord Advocate "As his

other Weighty Affairs will Allow". All of Sage’s process was being paid for out of the

public purse, even the minister’s own travelling expenses, a sum amounting to nearly

£200.

Later on during the same meeting, on 15 November 1728, the committee were

presented with some rather surprising information, namely "that the Synod of Glenelg

hath a Strong Inclination, to have the Kings Bounty turned out of the Present Channel

and Apply’d for Annual New Erections [of parishes] and that a Memorial was given

to General Wade at Fort William to Procure Countenance to it at Court". The

committee were obviously quite astonished that the synod had been going behind its

back. An emergency meeting was called for three days later; all lawyers on the

committee were urged to attend. The committee were far from happy with the synod’s

little project, and "Did judge that Motion very improper, and Unseasonable, and also

Disrespectful to the General Assembly, it’s Commission and Committees, who

Petition’d for that Bounty to be employ’d in the Manner it now is, and that they

should have been Acquainted before any such Motion had been made". Not only was

the motion disrespectful, it showed "a Dissatisfaction with the Method Graciously

Propos’d in his Majestys Royal Grant, after it was sought in that Manner by this

Church, and may have a Tendence to Withdraw the same." Ten days later, the

subcommittee brought in a draft of a letter to the synod, recalling that they had asked

for a copy of the Royal Grant, and wherein they thought it "Exceeding Strange that

You did not Judge it proper to Communicate Your Design to them, who (by

Delegation from the General Assembly of this Church Your Superior Judicatory are

intrusted with the Managment of that Bounty) before You made an Attempt to

introduce so great an Alteration in a Matter that Nearly Concerns the Interest of

Religion, Regard to his Majesty, and the Honour of this Whole Church." The

committee, obviously in high dudgeon, was quite merciless to the Synod of Glenelg,

bringing the full weight of its authority to bear upon them:


50

It was a great Adventure, and a most improper and unseasonable one in

so small a Number as your Synod Consists of, or in their Committee,

or any Presbytery in Your Bounds, to take upon them to Counterwork

the General Assembly and their Commission, to the Prejudice of other

Eight Synods as Considerable as you, who have an Interest in the

Matter. When the Committee have Weighed the many bad

Consequences that must Necessarily Attend this New Project, They

have Reason to think that the first Movers thereof, are either not

friendly to this Glorious Work, and judge this a likely Way to Marr it,

and no doubt it will prove so, Or if friendly, they have not duly

Considered all the disadvantages of that Proposal

The committee’s letter was accompanied by another memorial to General Wade,

urging him of the necessity to carry on the Royal Bounty scheme as it now was, given

the scattered nature of the population, and the impossibilities of carrying the heritors

along with such a scheme.

Yet the idea of the synod’s scheme had in the first place come from the heritors

themselves. Also, it should be remembered that the use of Royal Bounty funds to pay

parish stipends had in fact been mooted in the original lobbying for the scheme. The

Synod of Glenelg had first floated the idea the previous year, when it was suggested

that half the fund be reallotted to pay for the splitting of large, unwieldy parishes into

more manageable units. At their annual meeting, on 19 June 1728, the synod had

appointed a committee to draw up a scheme for the better employing of the Royal

Bounty, and to correspond with other neighbouring synods on the subject – evidently

this was how it leaked to the Royal Bounty Committee in Edinburgh. In January it

came out that the author of the report was Rev. James Gilchrist of Kilmallie; the

committee record that he wrote a letter to them on 4 April 1729, in which he defends

himself:

He says it was no Application to the Government, Only an Unsign’d

Memorial, giving the General a thought, which Perhaps might be new,

and which he was to make, what use of he Pleas’d, And the said Mr

Gilchrist owns he was the Writer thereof, and, except that that Scheme

is Agreeable to his Own Sentiments, the Writing of that Paper, is all

the hand he had in it. It was at the Desire of a Certain Gentleman that

he wrote it

Whatever support the Synod’s idea might have had among local landowners, the

government were firmly on the side of the Royal Bounty Committee. The upshot was

that relations between the committee and the various presbyteries in the Synod of

Glenelg – supposedly their greatest beneficiaries – became positively glacial, the

more so in that the committee, evidently set on pursuing their grudge to the bitter end,

insisted on taking the affair before the General Assembly of 1729. The Assembly

disapproved of the synod’s memorial, and that was an end to the matter, at least as far

as the committee was concerned.


51

A solution to the crisis?

Nevertheless, the affair of the Synod of Glenelg had clearly shown up the inadequacy

of the Royal Bounty scheme as it was then being administered. Despite their rather

desperate circumstances, the Presbyteries of Gairloch and Abertarff had received little

or no support from the fund; despite all the good intentions, ministers and catechists

were simply not willing to come to preach in their bounds. Both sides, the synod and

the committee, saw the need to encourage resident preachers and catechists in the

community. Yet a scheme by which itinerant preachers were ordered to leave their

home for an uncertain, uncomfortable and even dangerous three months among

hostile strangers was obviously totally unsatisfactory. Something had to be done. The

Synod of Glenelg had proposed using the Royal Bounty to increase the number of

resident ministers; the Royal Bounty Committee, on the other hand, was enthusiastic

about using the SSPCK schoolteachers as part-time catechists. General Wade’s

opinion, expressed in a letter of 16 November the previous year, was that an annual

bounty scheme could not be used to employ full-time established teachers.

Nevertheless, at the 1729 General Assembly the committee pursued this aim, asking –

as it was rather coyly put – "the Addition only of dispersing Books & Encouraging

Schools." The General Assembly agreed to allow the Royal Bounty Committee for

1729 to make its own decisions, and after that matters moved very quickly.

On 29 May 1729 the subcommittee decided that seeing demand for the Royal Bounty

was so high, they should correspond with the SSPCK and bring in a report

accordingly. A month later, the report was ready. It recommended that:

the Committee should Resolve in Concert with the said Society, to give

Commissions to several of the Masters settled in the said Schools, to

be Catechists for Catechising the People in these Places upon three

Days of the Week, namely Each Lord’s Day, Each Saturnday and each

Munday, both forenoon and Afternoon, and to allow such Catechists

for their Annual Service this say a Sum not exceeding Ten Pounds

Sterling Per Annum to be paid to the said Schoolmasters at two Terms

of the Year Vizt Whitsunday and Martinmass, beginning the first

Term’s Payment at Whitsunday 1730 for the half Year Preceeding

On their part, the SSPCK were willing and ready to settle schools in proper and

needful places according to the committee’s desire. Their own committee was ordered

to work together with the Royal Bounty Committee as soon as possible to work out

suitable places and candidates:

When the said Society and this Committee have Agreed upon a Certain

Number of Wel Qualified Persons to be their Respective

Schoolmasters and Catechists and Concerted the Proper Places of their

Settlments That the said Persons should for Distinction’s sake be thus

Design’d in the several Minutes of Register Vizt The Catechists jointly

employ’d by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge and this

Committee.

The jointly employed catechist-schoolmaster, receiving half his salary from the

SSPCK as a schoolmaster, and the other half from the Royal Bounty Committee as a


52

catechist, was not a new creation in 1729; there had been isolated examples

beforehand. But 1729 was the first year that this job share, as it were, was officially

recognised. The category of catechist-schoolmaster was by no means the largest in the

1729 Royal Bounty scheme: 46 of them to 60 of the older itinerant preacher types.

However, there was no doubt which group was the more cost-effective: 46 catechists,

whose salary was shared with the SSPCK, cost only £249; 60 missionaries, on the

other hand, cost £818. When it was found that some £59 was left over from the

previous year, the Royal Bounty Committee, tellingly, chose to fund 11 joint

catechist-schoolmasters.

Conclusion

Thus it was that the two bodies, the SSPCK and the Royal Bounty Committee, had to

begin to work together, in an alliance which lasted some forty years. As we shall see,

it was by no means an easy partnership: communication channels could be confused,

and the charitable SSPCK in particular had to be ready to defer to the official

committee whenever tensions arose. Nevertheless, through cooperation with the

Royal Bounty the SSPCK were able to spread their influence and their ideology far

and wide, much more so than they would have done had they to rely upon their own

resources alone. Granted, many, indeed most members of the Royal Bounty

Committee also attended meetings of the SSPCK; but the Royal Bounty funds were

not originally to be used – overtly at least – towards well-defined ideological ends,

other than the basics of preaching the gospel, encouraging loyalty, and combating

Roman Catholicism and Episcopalianism. The SSPCK, on the other hand, had over

their twenty years’ existence evolved a very specific picture of their ideal

Gàidhealtachd: it goes without saying that goodwill towards Gaelic language and

culture was not exactly a crucial part of the society’s vision. The SSPCK had a

cultural as well as a religious and political agenda, and this would henceforth be

prosecuted throughout the region with the assistance of official funds.

At the same time, the cooperation between Royal Bounty and SSPCK meant a great

extension in the missionary effort. For one thing, the society’s network of

schoolteachers, now enjoying a hefty injection of official funds, had already spread

far outwith the borders of the Gàidhealtachd. Then again, by working together and

effectively halving their costs, the two bodies were able to fund posts in much

smaller, isolated communities than previously. Among these new placements would

be the island of Colonsay.


53


Now, at last, we can turn back to Colonsay. You might remember the many problems

of the parish of Jura and Colonsay at the beginning of the eighteenth century: the

overwhelming size and unwieldiness of the parish itself, and indeed its presbytery,

that of Kintyre; the reluctance of the local landowners, the heritors, to pay for any

fresh expenses to do with the church; the uninspiring character of the local minister,

the Rev. Neill Campbell, whose first few years in the parish had possibly broken him;

and maybe rivalries within the presbytery itself. The parish may have been well

worthy of official support; but the shortcomings of both local gentry and local clergy

meant that that support would not be immediately forthcoming.

A schoolteacher in Colonsay

As we have seen, the Synod of Argyll, although the main church court in the region,

did not provide the impetus for the extension of ecclesiastical authority which had so

transformed the organisation of the presbyterian Church of Scotland – and indeed the

lives of the inhabitants – on the west coast during the 1720s. Rather, such demands

tended to come as a result of local presbyterial initiatives. However, the synod did

play a crucial rôle in making them happen. Again, we have seen that most missionary

activity was undertaken on the forfeited estates in the north-west mainland and also in

the staunchly Catholic eastern Highlands. The parish of Jura and Colonsay, with

neither island an obvious hotbed of jacobite sympathy, nor threatened by the inroads

of Catholic priests, was hardly an immediate priority. However, there is some

evidence to show that the Synod of Argyll was trying to ease the minister’s plight.

Edinburgh lawyers had long been suspicious – not to say jealous – of the vast

independent legal powers wielded by the duke of Argyll through his heritable

jurisdiction over much of the western seaboard of the Gàidhealtachd. In much the

same way, the Synod of Argyll was able to operate as a church court largely

independent of the central Church of Scotland. A 1690 act of parliament had allowed

them the vacant benefices and stipends in their area for their own uses, while five

years later they were awarded the Bishops’ Rents of Argyll and the Isles, monies

which the crown was finding too difficult to collect. It was widely believed –

incorrectly – that the synod was supposed to use the income for maintaining schools.

In fact, it could also be employed "for other pious uses that shall occur within the

bounds of the said synod, there being now more than ever in that place great need of

preachers". Whatever the case, many Scottish clergy were rather unhappy about

spending church money for educational purposes within the bounds of the Synod of

Argyll.

We are fortunate that the Barons of the Exchequer shared these suspicions. In 1730

they demanded that the Synod forward accounts to Edinburgh of how the monies had

been put to use since 1705. The synod not only sent them the relevant documents, but

rather cheekily recorded that it had "superexpended" £722.16s.4d. It noted that a

further £1,745.6s.8d., money no longer received as rent from the various new parishes


54

erected during the 1720s, should also be counted as credit. Perhaps we need not have

too much sympathy with the synod: it had, after all, spent £3,750 as salaries to the

trustees for the rents. Some things never change: a huge sum – £2,984.13s.10d. – had

been expended on lawyers’ fees. For our purposes, however, these accounts are

primarily of interest because they show the synod was at last using money out of the

Bishops’ Rents for the people of Colonsay.

As we have seen, there were no funds to help pay the Rev. Neill Campbell’s salary,

even though a stipend of £100 Scots out of the Bishops’ Rents was being paid for

Gigha from 1717, while three years later the new parish of Torosay on Mull was

granted an annual stipend of £300 Scots. We might note that the Rev. John Campbell,

minister of Kilarrow in Islay, who recommended in 1716 that Campbell be

encouraged out of the same fund, was himself the beneficiary of £466.13s.4d. Scots

every year. The minister of Jura and Colonsay, then, did not receive any aid; however,

the island of Colonsay did: for three years, from 1722 to 1724, £16 per annum was

paid to an unnamed schoolteacher there. It was doubtless at the same time that £80 –

not an especially large sum by any means – was spent "Building a Meeting house in

Collonsay & for a Schooll". Clearly, the Synod of Argyll was trying to help.

However, the long-term problem was the size and shape of the parish. Ideally, it

should be split in two.

The report of 1724

The main impetus for reforming the parish, however, came neither from the Synod of

Argyll nor from the Presbytery of Kintyre. Rather, it came about because of one

individual: the Rev. Neil Simson of Gigha (1690-1756). Although Simson had

effectively been minister of the island since 1717 (with £100 Scots annually from the

Bishops’ Rents), his charge was still officially part of its original parish – that is, Jura

and Colonsay. Simson wanted his own parish, and was not slow to make his

complaints known to the highest officials in the Church. As he came from a

distinguished dynasty of Kintyre ministers – both his father and his grandfather had

been staunch presbyterians and had suffered accordingly during the episcopalian

ascendancy – he had the confidence and the contacts to make himself heard.

Crucially, he won the support of Nicol Spence, agent of the Church, one of the most

important men in Scotland of his time. On 15 September 1724 the Presbytery read a

letter from Spence, wherein he stated that he had received from Simson an account

that three quarters of the heritors of the parish had now consented to the creation of a

new parish in Gigha and Cara. In other words, Simson had told Spence that a

sufficient number of local landowners had given their assent for the Church to go

ahead in dividing the parish. Summons were to be sent to all concerned; in addition,

Spence "also desires that the Presbytery meet and appoint a Committee to perambulat

the Bounds of the S[ai]ds Isles". The Presbytery decided "that this was an affair of

such consequence" that it was to be obeyed at once.

The ministers certainly did not procrastinate. For the first time in a generation a

deputation – including, of course, the Rev. Neil Campbell himself and Malcolm

MacNeill of Colonsay – was sent to tour the bounds of the parish of Jura and

Colonsay. The journey was already underway in the middle of October, there having

been a delay because Campbell was "wind-bound in Collonsa". Ready on 2


55

December, the report made depressing reading. Here is the section concerning

Colonsay:

West from Jura in the main Ocean, Lye the Isles of Collonsay &

Orronsay, at the Distance of Seven Leagues from the place of Landing,

This Dangerous Sea is called the Linne Tarshin. Their two Isles are

divided by a small Sound, the Length of Both Eight miles, the Breadth

two Miles and an half, the Catechiseable Persons four hundred, One

Place of worship in the Center, the Heritor Malcom McNeil of

Collonsay, The Rent Sixteen hundred Pounds Scots money Teinds

included, which are two hundred and Eighty pound money foresd of

which two hundred Pound paid to the minister and Eighty to the

Bishop

The committee summed up the parish as follows:

this Large Tract under the Inspection of the Minr of Jura of about

fourty Miles Length and thirty in Breadth is an Intollerable Charge for

one Minr, who in passing & Repassing between the Islands is put to

insupportable Charges and frequently wind Bound for ten and Twenty

days, Yea sometimes for a Month or Six weeks, and for the most part

miserably accomodate to the great prejudice of his health, from all qch

it appears that even this Charge cannot in any tolerable manner be

supply’d without two Minrs One in Jura & another in Collonsay &

Orronsay, and the small Islands in the North & Norwest of Jura to be

Annexed to the Parish of Luing & Saoil in the Presbytery of Lorn to

which they Ly most Contiguous.

There are many such parish descriptions dating from the 1720s, a time when

strenuous efforts were being made to extend the authority of church and state over the

entire country, thereby to integrate even the most outlying districts into the

ecclesiastical and political framework of Scotland, and, through educational and

commercial initiatives, to make the land and people into useful additions to the British

state.

The report of the parish of Jura and Colonsay was approved by the presbytery, and it

was noted that "the greatest part of the Heritors" agreed with the proposal. However,

it was recommended that the situation in Jura should continue as before "till some

Method be fallen upon for a Disjunction as is a[bove]exprest". The presbytery was

under no illusions that it would be a simple task to split the parish of Jura and

Colonsay. Nevertheless, the report was sent to Nicol Spence in Edinburgh, and also

recommended to the Lords for Plantation of Churches. But no further steps were

taken. The minutes of the Commission of the Church of Scotland for 11 March 1725

explain why. The presbytery had in fact been either misinformed or too optimistic

about the local heritors. A number of requests had been received to erect new

parishes: Gigha, Jura and Colonsay, Coll and Tiree, and others. Although the local

landowners had been asked to appear:

But the consent of some Heretors not being as yet obtain’d, And they

being Members of Parliament, and not in Scotland, these processes


56

could not hitherto be insisted in, The Commission renews the former

Appointments in thes matters.

Given the political crisis convulsing Scotland at the time, the major landowners had

more important things to worry about than creating new parishes in the western

Highlands. Nevertheless, as a result of the intervention of the Synod of Argyll, the

relationship between the Presbytery of Kintyre and Neil Campbell was transformed.

The report of 1726

On 30 July 1725 the synod recommended their presbyteries to take advantage of the

forthcoming Royal Bounty scheme. Government funds were now available in order to

sponsor itinerant ministers and catechists who would "fill in the gaps" in the still

patchy ecclesiastical framework in the Gàidhealtachd. The synod therefore advised

them:

to meet as soon as they can, and draw up a state of their bounds, and

send in the same to the Agent for the Church, to be Laid before the

Committee appointed by the Assembly for Reformation of the

Highlands and Islands of Scotland and for Management of the King’s

bounty for that end...

It is very interesting that the synod specifically takes up the case of the parishes under

the Presbytery of Kintyre. The Rev. Neil Campbell’s charge heads the list:

the Synod hereby earnestly entreats the said Committee to have a

special regaird to the state of the united parishes of Jura and Collonsay

and united parishes of Killean Kilchenzie Saddell and Caradell In the

Distribution of the Kings bounty.

The presbytery did as they were bidden, and put together another representation on

behalf of their colleague. However, this time they were rather tardy: it was not until a

year later, at a meeting on 6 August 1726, that the account appears to have been

compiled. In forceful, dramatic, even poetic terms, it describes the extreme difficulties

the minister faced in carrying out his duties. This is the presbytery’s description of

Colonsay. Given that it is apparently more geographically accurate than the 1724

report, one might wonder whether the earlier perambulation had indeed visited the

island, or had just relied on the Rev. Neill Campbell’s own estimations. The report

states:

That the Island of Collonsay Lyes ffive Leagues and upwards of a very

dangerous sea with strong Currents and Confluences of seas off the

Gulph of Corivrekane north west of the said Island of Jura which

Island of Collonsay is above six Myles In Length and three Myles

broad, and by reason of the dangerous seas foresaid The Minister will

be for severall weekes stormstayed or windbound before he can have

passage from the one Island to the other especially when the wind

blowes from the East or Northeast their being no Lands to the West or

southwest of the said Island of Collonsay but the open Western ocean


57

In to which the said Minister hes been often In danger of being

driven...

Evidently they had had a rough time of the crossing. The representation concludes

with a wonderful melodramatic crescendo:

And seing Notwithstanding of the Largeness of this Charge Yet the

stipend is very Inconsiderable not exceeding ffyve hundered pounds

Scots whereof a good part must of Necessity be expended and Debursd

by the Minister in fferying from one Island to another In order to

Discharge his Ministeriall ffunction In the said Islands, And That there

are no manner of ffree Teinds unaffected within the said Islands or any

other ffunds whereby the said stipend can be Augmented (the whole

Inhabitants being very poor) And That Lykewayes the Minister hes

neither Manse or Gleib Therefore the said Presbyterie of Kintyre Do

hereby earnestly Recommend to the said Committee ffor Manadging of

his Majesties Bounty That they have Speciall regaird to the Clamant

Circumstances of the said parish the Lyke whereof Cannot be

paraleal’d In the whole Highlands of Scotland nor perhaps In any part

of the Christian world And humbly suppose that such a proportion of

his Majesties bounty Cannot be better employed than In provyding ane

assistant ffor the service of the said parish

The Presbytery had put together an impressive plea on the Rev. Neil Campbell’s

behalf. However, in return they expected the minister of Jura to make amends for his

negligent behaviour in the past. Although his colleagues still sympathised with his

difficulties, they were no longer prepared to be so lenient as before. Campbell’s usual

excuses no longer sufficed:

he being remov’d, the s[ai]d Excuses were Considerd, and the Presy

could not but Sympathise with him under his insupportable Grievances

in his Charge, but in the mean time could not be satisfied with his

Constant Absence And his having the [preaching] Exercise so Long on

his hands.

The representation of the state of the parish of Jura and Colonsay, along with requests

for an assistant from the united parish of Killean, Kilchenzie and Saddell, was sent to

the Synod of Argyll, who forwarded them with a covering letter to the Royal Bounty

Committee. The request was duly considered on 12 October 1726, and obviously

made an impression:

The Clerk presented a Representation of the Presbytery of Kintyre to

the Committee, Shewing that Mr Neil Campbell Minister has under his

Charge the Isles of Juray, Collonsay, Scaraba and Lunga, Garvellich,

Elachanive and Belnahnay [recte Belnahuay], That Juray is Twenty

four miles in length, and Six in Breadth, in which there are two places

for publick worship, That Collonsay Lyes five leagues therefrom, and

is Six miles in length And three in Breadth, That Scaraba is Three

miles in length, and three in Breadth, That Lunga is Two miles in

length, And the other Islands abovenamed are also Inhabited, And that


58

there are Strong Currents of Sea Interjected, which makes passage

uncertain dangerous and Expensive, And the Minister long detained in

some of them, when his presence in the rest is most necessary, And

that his Stipend is only about Five hundred pound Scots, and no free

Teinds Unaffected in these Islands; and Therefore Craving some

Allowance for an Assistant, And this is Recommended by a Letter

from the Synod of Argyle dated the Eight day of August last Signed by

Mr Dugald Campbell Moderator.

Unfortunately, the Royal Bounty Committee was unable to help. The representations

had come in too late in the year. Although they

Do Find the Circumstances of the forsaid Parishes very Clamant, But

the forsaid Representations not having been Presented before

Distribution of the Kings Bounty after the Late General Assembly, and

this years Allowance being already Destinated, and places and Persons

having thereby obtained a Right, This Committee cannot make any

Alteration therein without the Consent of these concerned, And so

Cannot at present Answer the Desire of the forsaid Representations and

Letter, And though they had money, can only grant Annual

Allowances to Missionaries, But not Settled allowances to Assisstants,

And therefore orders that a Letter be wrote to the said Presbytery,

Intimating this to them, and Desireing that they may Apply more

timously next year.

Evidently, the Synod also requested once more that the parish be split. Once more,

however, they ran up against landed interests – in this case "Great" Daniel Campbell

of Shawfield, successful tobacco and indeed slave merchant, collector of Customs and

financier who had become Member of Parliament for the Glasgow burghs in 1716,

after having earlier represented Inveraray. His zeal as a collector made him an

unpopular figure in the town. Because of his support for the Malt Tax of 1725, an

angry mob ransacked his mansion, Shawfield House, and destroyed its interior.

Suspecting the town council of conniving with the rioters, Shawfield called in a loan

of £4,500 he had previously made to them. It was doubtless this money, and the

£6,080 which the government awarded him as compensation (out of Glasgow council

coffers), which enabled him to buy Islay and much of Jura in 1726. Shawfield had

already been leasing these estates from the previous owner, John Campbell of

Cawdor, since 1723. Although he would soon be a staunch supporter of the church on

his estates, at the time of purchase he was evidently rather unwilling, and probably

unable, to bear much of the expense of splitting the parish. Indeed, he had to sell

Shawfield House in 1727. As appears from the minutes of the Commission of the

Church for 8 March of that year, Shawfield withheld his consent.

A catechist for Colonsay at last

Although the committee had no money resting from the 1726 scheme to pay for

catechists, in May 1727 they were able to allow £22 sterling "and some odd money"

for an itinerant minister to help Campbell in Jura. On 5 August the Presbytery of

Kintyre again summoned him to their meeting. If the minister of Jura and Colonsay

were to receive official support, if an outsider with an official salary were to work


59

alongside him, then it was absolutely imperative that he be seen to be a worthy

recipient, not a disgrace to the presbytery. This time they not only complained about

his absences, but also enquired into his administration of the parish. What they found

shocked them. Campbell had never administered communion to his parishioners:

To which He answered that he was discouraged from attempting such a

Work in regard He found little appearance of the reality of Religion

amongst them, and that He has no constitute Eldership in his parish.

Not only was the minister failing in his duties, he was clearly estranged from his

flock. Hardly surprisingly, the presbytery registered that it was "very much

disatisfied" with their colleague. Campbell, however, must have expected trouble; he

had come to the meeting prepared. To prove his commitment to the ongoing

evangelizing of his charge:

Mr Neill Campbell brought from the parish of Colonsay Donald

MacLean a young man, whom He recommended as qualified for the

office of Catechist. He being called in was Examined & approven.

It is likely that this Donald MacLean was the son of John MacLean, who with Donald

MacPherson was one of "the two Catechists who have been Lately Imployed in ye

Isles of Colonsa and Jura" who complained in August 1703 that they were "not yet

payed for yr pains and diligence among ye people of the s[ai]d Isles". We might also

suggest that John MacLean was the church officer who delivered the Presbytery of

Kintyre’s summons to the recalcitrant Rev. John MacSween, Campbell’s episcopalian

predecessor, in 1700. MacLean would not last long at his first stint as catechist.

However, he would return to his post, and would be responsible for the education of

nearly three generations of Colbhasaich.


60


The following piece deals with the breakdown in communications which could occur

between the authorities and the islands at a time when transport was slow and erratic,

and the post none too trustworthy. The attempt by local ministers to cover up any

problems from an official authority obsessed with ensuring that its monies were used

conscientiously, only caused them more trouble. The real sufferer, however, was the

innocent catechist stuck in the middle.

Supervising the catechists

Donald MacLean, the new catechist for Colonsay, was presented by his minister the

Rev. Neill Campbell to the Presbytery of Kintyre on 5 August 1727. It is most

unfortunate that there is a gap in the presbytery records between that month and

February 1732, but it is clear that MacLean was swiftly recommended to the Royal

Bounty Committee in Edinburgh. Charles Stewart, clerk to the Presbytery, wrote to

the Committee on the 4 October 1727. His message was that it was impossible for it

to send any probationer minister to Jura, given that there was none in the bounds of

the presbytery. He proposed that instead of paying for a probationer, the Committee

might want to use the salary to pay for catechists instead. This is probably the reason

why "Donald McLean in Colonsay" appears on the roll of Royal Bounty catechists for

November of that year. He was to be paid £5 for a year’s work – evidently what the

presbytery had requested.

On 2 January 1728 MacLean braved the winter storms to cross the sea to

Campbeltown, a journey which one suspects would not normally be undertaken

except in dire necessity. The reason for this unwonted excursion is to be found in the

rules of the Royal Bounty Committee, which required that all preachers and

catechists:

produce to the Presbyteries they come to, before they be employ’d a

Certificate upon trial, from a Presbytery of this National Church, Of

their Orthodoxy, Piety, Literature, Prudence and other necessary

Qualifications for the Work they are respective called unto; As also An

Authentick Certificate from a proper Judge of their Loyalty to His

Majesty King George and good Affection to His Royal Family and

Protestant Succession therein

Without the necessary certificates, the catechist would not be registered and would

not receive any salary. Thus it was that at Campbeltown MacLean stood before David

Campbell, baillie of Kintyre and the local Justice of the Peace. Together with the

other catechists in the presbytery, he proved that he was a loyal subject of King

George by taking "the Oaths appointed by Law to be taken by all persons in publick

Trust namely the Oaths of Allegiance & Abjuration and Signing of the Oath of

Assurance". However, MacLean would not remain long at his post.

The Royal Bounty Committee expected that its catechists "teach according to the

Scriptures of Truth, the Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms the


61

Standards of the Doctrine of this Church, and keep close thereby". Not only were they

to instruct their neighbours; their bearing and conduct was expected to be exemplary.

The Committee urged its employees:

that in the prosecution of this good and great design, you may act

conscientiously Depending upon God for Counsel, Strength, furniture

and Success, Be much in Prayer to God, and be resign’d to His Will,

Let His Glory and the Good of Precious Souls be your chief Motive,

Lay your Account with opposition, Study Humility, Self denyal,

Patience, Forebearance and Prudence, And carry with Meekness and

Love, Let your Deportment and Managment be such as that these with

whom you have to do, may see that you seek their Good, And take the

most gaining methods with them, Be always affraid, lest this Excellent

design suffer through your fault.

The Committee was setting high standards. If the intention was to impose discipline

upon individual behaviour throughout the Highlands, they had to begin with their

own. As we have seen, the Committee was obsessed with closely scrutinizing its

employees. Each and every catechist was:

to return the Committee An authentick Testimonial from the

Presbytery in whose bounds they serve, Bearing their Production of the

foresaid Certificates, the time they laboured there, how many Lord’s

Days these Minsters and Probationers did preach among them, and

where, And giving Account of their Diligence and good Behaviour,

And they are not to get payment of the last Moyetie of their foresaid

Allowances till the said Testimonial be produced.

Each year the work of every minister and catechist in the service of the Royal Bounty

Committee was to be assessed. The entire ongoing process of evangelization was to

be firmly regulated by the authorities in Edinburgh. It was not long, however, before

it became clear that such a minute and careful control of remote and often inaccessible

islands was quite impracticable. The Committee recognised this with a notable lack of

grace. Nevertheless, it expected that the Presbytery of Kintyre regularly send the

required certificates to Edinburgh, testifying that the catechists in their pay had in fact

been carrying out their duties. Until these credentials were received, no salaries would

be allowed.

Communication problems

However, for whatever reason, the Presbytery of Kintyre neglected to send the

relevant certificates to Edinburgh. Inclement weather, or indeed his own fecklessness,

may have prevented the Rev. Neill Campbell from reporting to his fellow ministers

how the catechists were faring. Then again, as we shall see, Campbell may well have

been having problems with his new assistant. At the end of 1728 the Committee in

Edinburgh sent them a letter, evidently wondering just what was going on. The

presbytery would take over two months to reply.


62

In a covering letter on 5 March 1729 to Nicol Spence, the agent for the church,

together with the certificates of Donald MacLean and his fellow catechists, the

presbytery excused themselves as follows:

Sir

We receiv’d a Letter from the Revd & Honble Comittee for the royal

Bounty of the 26th

Decr last, to which it was not practicable for us to

give an Answer sooner, & were the state of our Bounds & the vast

distance that our Members are at from this Country, where our

Meetings for ordinary are, well known to the Comittee, there wou’d be

no Exception taken at some little informalities, much less so far as to

deprive some of our remote Isles of what they thought themselves so

well entitled to, not only by the Grant of the Comittee but by their oun

most clamant circumstances. There are even in the Rules of the

Comittee Exceptions of remote corners & none have better ground to

plead the benefit of these, than the vast and insupportable Charge of

Jura, Colinsay & adjacent Islands, all under one Ministers Inspection...

The presbytery went on to stress that, as a result of the Royal Bounty Committee’s

fastidiousness in not paying their employees without having received their

certificates, the catechists had suffered badly that winter:

The Catechists have been so restricted to their Office that they could

use no other Shift for their oun Subsistence, which in this hard &

straitning Year puts them in danger of Starving if they get not their

Sallaries We entreat that the Money be paid to Mr David Campbell

Bailie of Kintyre who will take care to deliver it to the respective

Catechists.

At a meeting of 22 May 1729, having read the letter, the Committee recognised the

difficulty faced by members of the clergy in Islay, Jura and Colonsay:

to keep a Correspondence with the Committee it being Seldom the

Ministers of these Islands can attend their own Presbyterys by reason

of their great Distance therefrom, and Dangerous Seas Interjected, The

Committee having Considered the Case did Appoint the Cashier to pay

the whole Catechists named by them for those places according to their

Certificates, of what is resting, ever since the time their Salaries were

Appointed, But it is hereby Declared, this is not to be a Precedent, and

in time Coming the Rules are to be observed.

This time the Committee had relented. It would not do so again. Subsequent events,

however, were to suggest that the problems with the Colonsay catechist was rather

more serious than just a breakdown in communications.

A new catechist for Colonsay

Scarcely had one problem been laid to rest than another appeared. On the 25 October

1729 the Presbytery of Kintyre sent another letter to Nicol Spence. The Presbytery of


63

Kintyre had sponsored Donald MacLean as a catechist for the year 1728-9; at last, he

had received his salary. But all was not well: in fact, MacLean had not been at his

post at all that year:

Sir

We did the last Year give you the Trouble of representing the clamant

Circumstances of Ila, Jura & the other adjacent Islands and did beg the

favour of you to lay the same before the Reverend & Honourable

Comittee entrusted with the managem[en]t of the Royal Bounty & we

do now return you our hearty thanks for your good Offices. We are

now obliged in pursuance of what was then granted to inform you that

Donald McLean then nominated Catechist for Colonsay for the current

Year was otherwise preingag’d before Yours came to hand, & there

being none found fitter to officiate in that Station than James Muir

School Master there who hath since November last taught the Children

to read the Scriptures & the Elder People the principles of Religion, He

being employed by the Minister & his Session in that work, of which

we were only of late appriz’d, they lying at such a distance from us, as

we formerly told you, that we can but seldom have communication

with them. And they having sent up the said James Muir now to be

examind by the Presbytry, we can upon good grounds attest, that after

examining of him, we judge him a person that may be very useful in

that remote corner. And He having qualified as the Law directs, we

entreat you may be pleas’d to use your Influence with the Rev’d &

Honble Comittee to procure him payment of the five Pounds Str

allowed by them the current Year for the said Isle. We have got no

particular Accott of what Allowance the Revd & Honble Comittee

made of the Royal Bounty for our Bounds the ensuing Year....

Donald MacLean had left his job, doubtless scunnered by the non-payment of his

already low salary. Later on we shall see that it is likely that he left to work with his

brother Gilbert, a local merchant.

Apparently, however, there was already another teacher on Colonsay. As we have

seen earlier, the Synod of Argyll had paid for a schoolhouse on the island, as well as a

salary for a schoolmaster there between 1722 and 1724. That teacher may well have

been James Moore. Subsequently, it appears from the letter, he was employed by the

minister and the kirk session. In this case, however, the "Session" probably means one

man only, namely Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay. Indeed, given his name, Moore

may well have been called over by MacNeill from Kintyre for that very purpose.

Originally from Ayrshire, and of strong covenanting sympathies, a number of Muirs

had been taken over as tacksmen, and indeed as officers, as part of the Lowland

plantation of Kintyre by the marquis of Argyll in the middle of the seventeenth

century. Although the new catechist is almost always referred to as "Muir" in official

papers, in certificates he spells his own name after the somewhat high-falutin’

anglicizing eighteenth-century fashion, "Moore". As we shall see, subsequent events

suggest that Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay held Moore in high regard, and was

prepared to take some pains to retain him in his post.


64

"James Moor catechist in Colensay" had already taken the oaths required of him at

Campbeltown on the 8 October 1729. The presbytery were in effect presenting the

Royal Bounty Committee with a fait accompli; they had a catechist ready in place of

Donald MacLean. It is interesting that the ministers wrote to Nicol Spence – a

possible ally? – rather than risk writing straight to the committee itself.

Problems with the pay rise

The presbytery blamed the Rev. Neil Campbell, his (possibly non-existent) kirk

session, and the remoteness of the parish. However, it did not look at all good, the

more so because on 30 October 1729, while the letter was still making its way to

Edinburgh, Donald MacLean had been given a pay rise, and a second set of

employers. His salary was now eight pounds sterling, paid jointly out of the funds of

the Royal Bounty and the SSPCK – in effect a saving of one pound by the committee,

compared to the five pounds they had allowed MacLean previously. Yet Donald

MacLean was no longer catechist in Colonsay. Indeed, he may well have left the

country.

Disastrously, the Committee’s letter to the Presbytery of Kintyre informing them of

MacLean’s pay rise crossed over the presbytery’s letter informing them that the

catechist was no longer at his post. Having heard of the Committee’s decision, the

presbytery had no option but to write another letter, on 12 December 1729, this time

to the Royal Bounty Committee itself, informing them again about their new

employee in Colonsay:

We receiv’d Yours of Octr 30th

& in answer thereto, the Presby is fully

satisfied with the Persons you have nominated for Catechists the

ensuing Year for our bounds, & with the particular Proportions of

Sallary allowed to each of them, only as to Donald McLean in

Colonsay, as we wrote in our last, He is otherwise employed, but one

James Muir School Master there has been officiating the bygone

[supra: half] Year & now being examined by the Presby is found

sufficiently qualified for that Work, And if the Rev’d & Honble

Comittee, please to allow him to succeed in that office, we shall send

him, according to your Instructions, an Extract of your Letter for his

Commission...

The little alteration of James Moore’s time in office from a year to half a year is

telling; the presbytery are trying to make out that Donald MacLean was in his post for

at least some of the time he received his salary, that the Committee had not wasted

five pounds on a non-existent catechist. In addition, Moore had only taken the official

oaths of allegiance, abjuration and assurance on 8 September 1729; before then he

was strictly speaking not legally qualified to work for the Royal Bounty Committee.

The letter, before the "half" was added, suggested that Donald MacLean had left

employment around the end of 1728.

The Royal Bounty Committee accepted the new candidate, but of course not without

certain reservations, demanding "that the said Presbytery be wrote to, to inform the

Committee more Particularly where and what way the said Donald McLean is

Employ’d". Moore was to be paid the same amount as MacLean for one year, but only


65

from the beginning of the previous month, "with a Salary of Eight Pounds Sterling

whereof the one half to be paid by the Treasurer of the Society for Propagating

Christian Knowledge (as Appears by a Resolution of their Committee produced this

Day) And the other half by the Cashier of this Committee".

The presbytery has to come clean

Three months later, however, the Presbytery of Kintyre made a major blunder. On the

19 March 1730 they wrote another letter, asking that, because Donald MacLean had

"left these bounds" about Martinmas (1 November) 1728, that the salary awarded to

MacLean after that time – a full year’s payment – should be given to Moore instead.

We can now understand why the minister and presbytery were so reluctant, or perhaps

unable, to send the Committee the necessary certificates of Donald MacLean’s

"Diligence and good Behaviour" towards the end of 1728. He was in fact no longer

working for them. It looks as if ever since then they had been quietly employing

James Moore in an unofficial capacity, perhaps in the expectation that Donald

MacLean would eventually return to his post. We might suspect that now Moore was

agitating to be paid for all his work: that is, ever since he had taken over in November

1728. The Royal Bounty Committee, however, would only pay him for the time he

had been officially employed: in other words, since the beginning of their current

"financial year" in November 1729. The presbytery eventually had to come clean

about their – or most probably the Rev. Neill Campbell’s – clumsy stratagem. It had

blown up in their faces.

Once more a letter was sent not to the Royal Bounty Committee, but to Nicol Spence.

It apparently was an attempt by the presbytery to have Spence use his personal

influence with the committee in order to try to have it pay Moore the five pounds

contribution which should have been due to MacLean. Nevertheless, the letter found

itself in the hands of the Royal Bounty Committee, and it was not best impressed by

the presbytery’s apparent subterfuge. Moore’s business was discussed on 30 April

1730. The committee refused point-blank to backdate his claim:

the said James Muir is Appointed to be Catechist Jointly Employ’d in

Collonsay for one Year after Martinmass last, with a Salary near twice

as much as what was formerly allowed to the forsaid Donald McLean,

and that for this and other Reasons the Committee Can allow no Salary

to the above Mure for any service preceeding Martinmass last.

The committee had other suspicions too, as can be seen from the second point made in

its reply. It is clear from the note that "It does not Yet Appear to the Committee but

the above Donald McLean may be presently in the Committee’s Service Elsewhere";

that is, that it was suspected that the Presbytery of Kintyre had quietly made a deal

with the Presbytery of Skye to transfer Donald MacLean to Earlesbeg in that island,

where a catechist of the same name had begun employment on 1 August 1728. The

fact that the moderator of the presbytery was himself a MacLean may have further

increased the Royal Bounty Committee’s misgivings. Henceforth, the Presbytery of

Kintyre were ordered to send all letters concerning catechists to the moderator of the

Royal Bounty Committee (in other words, not to their friend Nicol Spence); they were

to supply full explanations for any catechists who left their posts; and they were


66

immediately to send a letter back acknowledging receipt of these orders.. The

presbytery had attempted to pull the wool over the eyes of the authorities in

Edinburgh, and had been given a sharp slap on the wrist for its pains. A suspicious

and rather frosty relationship ensued.

The Committee take their revenge

That September Moore was again allowed eight pounds sterling from the Royal

Bounty Committee and the SSPCK. On 14 October 1730 the Rev. Neil Campbell

wrote a letter to the SSPCK:

With a List of Scholars at the School of Collonsay James Muir Master

Consisting of Sixteen Boys One Girl, But giving no account of their

Learning, Neither is the List subscrib’d, And also A Receipt by the

Minister of the Books sent to the School was produced; The said Letter

represents the need the Isle of Collonsay & other Isles adjacent to it,

are in, of more Schools & Catechists; The Committee appointed That

the Minister & Schoolmaster be desired to have the said School visited

& a regular Report sent, And found That the Society’s funds cannot

allow of more Schools to the foresaid Isles.

Campbell’s letter was evidently neither informative nor written according to the

proper form, did not reach Edinburgh until nearly a full six months after it was

(apparently) written, and may have done more harm than good, increasing the

authorities’ suspicions that there was something wrong with the school at Colonsay.

On 16 August 1731, the following resolution was passed by a rather vengeful Royal

Bounty Committee:

That James Muir Jointly Employed in the Island of Colonsay, in the

paroch of Jura and Colonsay and presbyterie of Kintyre, who has had

Annually Eight pounds Sterling for this and the preceeding year,

Which is Annually Three pounds more than what the said presbytrie

Craved for him; Therefore the said James Muir is now continued, Dito

place another year, after November next, With Six pounds Sterling,

whereof the one half to be paid by the forsaid Society, And the other

half by this Committee.

Thus, in one stroke, the unfortunate James Moore lost one quarter of his salary. The

Committee deftly put the blame on the Presbytery of Kintyre, who had requested only

five pounds for the previous catechist four years previously. The matter, of course,

would not be allowed to rest there.


67


Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay

At this point in our story, a new actor appears on the scene. Malcolm MacNeill, the

eldest son of Donald MacNeill of Crear in Knapdale, had obtained the islands of

Colonsay and Oronsay, partly through payment and partly through an exchange of

lands, from the earl of Argyll in 1701. At first sight, MacNeill does not appear to be

much of a friend of the church. Supposedly, he demolished an old ecclesiastical

building – tradition says that it was a monastery – and used the material to build

Colonsay House in 1722. As we have seen, he was most reluctant to pay the Rev. Neil

Campbell the stipend due to him and to restore the church glebe of Oronsay. In this

case, however, first impressions would be mistaken. As we shall see, Malcolm

MacNeill was determined to spread the evangelical religion on Colonsay. He very

much wanted a catechist ministering to the Colbhasaich.

From the evidence we have, it appears that Malcolm MacNeill represented a type

hardly uncommon in the eighteenth century and beyond: a vigorous and ambitious

entrepreneur driven by business acumen and religious enthusiasm. As with many

members and supporters of the SSPCK, he was a firm believer in the twin gospels of

evangelical religion and hard work. Ever since the covenanting era in the middle of

the previous century, many parishes in Argyllshire had been ministered to by

committed presbyterian or crypto-presbyterian clergy under Campbell patronage. This

evangelical influence was perhaps strongest in Kintyre, reinforced as it was by the

presence of many planted Lowland families – including the Muirs or Moores – who

were originally from the south-west of Scotland, and doubtless retained family ties

with this strongly covenanting region. And, of course, Ulster, that hotbed of

presbyterianism, was not even a day’s sail away. It is hardly surprising, then, that the

laird of Colonsay – as well as other members of his clan – supported such reforming

initiatives. Indeed, as we have seen, Malcolm MacNeill had probably recruited James

Moore to the island in the first place.

MacNeill’s attempts to save Moore’s salary

We can imagine that in MacNeill’s eyes, a schoolteacher-catechist would be a very

beneficial addition indeed to Colonsay. The teaching of English and other apparently

useful skills would increase his social control of the people and wean them from

superstition (we might surmise that it was MacNeill’s hostility to the old religion and

its customs which made him demolish the "monastery"). It would orient them to the

encroaching commercial world outside. Indeed, it might even save their souls.

Business and religious benefits would accrue together. However, as we have seen,

thanks in part to the incompetence of the Presbytery of Kintyre, the Colonsay

catechist’s yearly salary had been reduced by a quarter. He was obviously now

considering his options. Given that the Rev. Neil Campbell would be no use

whatsoever in asking for Moore’s salary to be restored, Malcolm MacNeill would

have to take the initiative on his own. On 13 January 1732 the laird of Colonsay

appeared in person before the SSPCK in Edinburgh:


68

And represented that James Muir Schoolmaster, jointly employ’d in

the Isle of Collonsay, his Salary which last year was four pound

sterling from each of the two Funds, being reduced to Three pound

each from November last, He could not Subsist thereon, Unless it be at

least Augmented to what it was formerly: Which being considered by

the Committee, They remitted the Case to the Committee for managing

the Royal Bounty; With their Opinion That If the said Committee

thinks fit, the said Salary may be made up, as it was the former Year.

It is noteworthy that the voluntary organisation of the SSPCK deferred to the official

church authority of the Royal Bounty Committee in such matters.

MacNeill’s request was thus forwarded to the committee. In the Royal Bounty papers

there is preserved a wonderful letter of 22 September 1729 from the Rev. John

MacVicar of Kilarrow, Kilmeny and Kilchoman in Islay to his brother the Rev. Neil

MacVicar of the West Kirk in Edinburgh. The latter had been transferred to

Edinburgh from Fort William in 1704, with the special duty of taking care of the

many Gaels who were now living in the capital. He was now a very influential figure

indeed in the capital. In the letter his brother requested him to take care of one

particular Highlander, the son of Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay who, after a time in

Glasgow University, was now going to study law at Edinburgh. I suspect that the

letter found itself into the hands of the Royal Bounty Committee as a character

reference for the laird, and was presented together with the petition for his catechist:

The Bearer hereof Malcolm McNeil of Colonsay designing to goe to

Edenburgh with his son, who has past his Course at the Colledge of

Glasgow, in order to leave him there for further Degrees of Education

is desireous to make him acquainted with you Hopeing that your

Inspection and advice may be of use to him in that place of much

temptation to youth. And at his desire I write you this begging you may

not be found wanting to doe the Gentleman all the service you can his

way. He is a very discreet civil Gentleman and a Kind ffriend I doubt

not but you knew his ffather Donald McNeil of Creir who was as

pertinent and sagacious a Gentleman as was of his station in our

Country. The young man is a Lad of pregnant parts and has as I am

Informed Improven his time to good advantage hitherto and being to

goe in there now as I suppose to attend the Latteron [i.e. study law] His

ffather is very anxious about him fearing he may be any way carried

away by the Influence of Bad Company.

MacVicar’s pleading had no effect on the Royal Bounty Committee. They rejected

MacNeill’s request. Indeed, now that the case of the Colonsay catechist had been

brought to their attention once more, they noticed that his school was not being

inspected as it should have been. On the 3 February the clerk of the SSPCK reported

back:

That the Case of James Muir Jointly Employ’d as Schoolmaster and

Catechist in the Isle of Colonsay being laid before the Committee for

managing the Royal Bounty, They Refused to grant any Augmentation

of his Salary for this Year. This Committee do likewise Continue his


69

Salary as settled in September last without any Addition, And

appointed that a Letter be written to the said James Muir, taking notice

of his not sending to the Society An Account of the State of his School.

At a meeting on 18 July 1732, the usually sluggish Presbytery of Kintyre acted with

remarkable swiftness – to try to divest themselves of all responsibilities whatsoever

for supervising the school in Colonsay:

The Committee for propagating Christian knowledge having sent a

letter to the Presbytery anent the deficiencies in their contributions &

appointing the Charity School in Colonsay to be visited, the Presby

delay the consideration of the deficiencies till a more full meeting;

They agree that the clerk write to Mr Niel Campbell minr. & the Laird

of Colonsay, that they visit the school and send in a report to the

presby by the first. As also that the clerk write to the society apprising

them of this appointment of the Presby, and that if they please they

may fix the minr. & Colonsay for their correspondents anent the school

because of the distance of the island.

For the past three years, the Colonsay catechist had caused nothing but trouble for the

Presbytery of Kintyre. Henceforth the school would be the responsibility of Malcolm

MacNeill and the Rev. Neil Campbell. They visited the school on the 7 September.

Although unfortunately we do not have the actual assessment made by the minister

and the laird, it is clear that, as we might expect, it was favourable. A letter containing

the "full representation" made by Campbell and MacNeill of the school at Colonsay

was sent to the clerk of the presbytery, who, interestingly enough, only showed it to

the local ministers before sending it to the clerk of the SSPCK. The society was

pleased with the account, and, although it would not allow Moore any extra money

that year, it nevertheless gave the go-ahead to the presbytery to apply for a rise in the

catechist’s salary for the following one:

he shewed the letter to the ministers of Campbelton & by their advice

sent it & the account of their visitation to Mr Spence to be presented to

the Society.

Mr Nicol Spence sent a letter to the Presby advising that he presented

the Presby’s letter to the society & that the society was pretty well

satisfied with the state of the school in Colensay and give allowance to

apply to them for an augmentation of sallery for the school master

there against the first of August next.

However, James Moore’s troubles were not over just yet. As advised, the Presbytery

of Kintyre wrote a letter on the 9 July 1733 to the SSPCK, asking them for an

augmentation in Moore’s salary. However, as before, the society hesitated to take

action on its own. Once again, it passed over the application to the Royal Bounty

Committee.

After what must have been a rather nerve-racking delay for the catechist, long after

the 1 August deadline, on 4 October 1733, the SSPCK agreed to give Moore an


70

augmentation. Unfortunately, both bodies, the society and the Royal Bounty

Committee, only agreed to allow him an extra pound sterling between them. His

salary was thus now seven pounds, still a pound less than he was earning four years

earlier. Moore must have been disappointed with his pay rise, because once more

Malcolm MacNeill of Colonsay took up his pen on his behalf. It is clear that he

immediately organised a visitation to the school at Colonsay, and sent the (evidently

glowing) report together with a rather astonishing covering letter to the relevant

authorities in Edinburgh – again, not to the Royal Bounty Committee, but to the

SSPCK. As before, he asked for an increase in Moore’s pay, but this time he offered

some rather more concrete encouragement. The letter was sent on the 29 October

1733, but MacNeill’s representation was not discussed until 2 February the next year:

Presented a Report of the Visitation of the School at Collonsay with a

List of Scholars thereat Which the Committee found Satisfying, and

Appointed to be insert in the List of Schools for this Year, and grant

Warrand for Payment of the Schoolmasters Salary resting Preceeding

the first of November last.

A Letter from Malcolm McNiel of Colonsay dated twenty ninth of

October last Complaining of the Diminution of the Schoolmaster at

Collonsay his Salary, and Craving the same be Augmented to Eight

pounds Sterling per Annum, the said Letter sets furth the State of that

Country, & Contains Proposals for maintaining Missionary Ministers

therein and Obtaining New Erection of Parishes, and the Letter further

Bears that the said Laird of Collonsay has sent hither Ten pounds

Sterling as his Donation towards the Societys Stock. The Committee

having heard the said Letter read Appoint a Letter of thanks to be

wrote to the said Laird of Colonsay for his forsaid Donations and other

his good Offices and Encouragmt given for promoting Christian

Knowledge in that Country, and the Committee Resolve at making up

next Year’s Scheme to Augment James Muir Schoolmaster there his

Salary to Eight pounds Sterling as formerly he had. But as to the

proposals for new Erections and maintaining Missionary Ministers, the

Committee find it not Competent for the Society to meddle therein.

In other words, Malcolm MacNeill secured an increase in salary for his Colonsay

catechist – at least in part – by offering a ten pounds bribe to the SSPCK.

This might seem rather typical of an energetic and artful entrepreneur who was

willing to use quite blatantly unprincipled methods to get his own way. At the same

time, we should note that MacNeill had taken the time to put together an account of

the island for the society, including suggestions both for deploying lay ministers and

indeed for splitting the unwieldy parish, doubtless with a view to creating a new

parish of Colonsay. It is clear that MacNeill was not acting alone.


71


Daniel Campbell of Shawfield

Reading the records of the Presbytery of Kintyre, we can see that Daniel Campbell of

Shawfield, who at that time owned much of Jura, had been keen for some time to

rehabilitate the parish. As we have seen, in 1726 Shawfield had bought the Islay

estates previously owned by the Campbells of Cawdor, estates which also included

much of Jura as well. Like Malcolm MacNeill, he not only envisaged a new

commercial order on these estates; he also intended to rework his tenants’ hearts,

minds and souls. One way to do this was to support the Presbytery of Kintyre’s

requests for catechists for their bounds. Thus it was that on 12 June 1729 he wrote a

letter to the Royal Bounty Committee, promoting the presbytery’s plans for catechists:

particularly to Ilay, Jura, Scaraby and Colonsay very much needing the

same, and Shewing his Purpose to do something in Places where he

has Interest, in Order to a more Plentiful Dispensation of Gospel

Ordinances.

It is clear from a letter written on the 25 June to Nicol Spence by the Rev. James Boes

or Boas of the Lowland Charge in Campbeltown that if the catechists were indeed

supplied in the relevant islands, then Shawfield would be encouraged:

to go on in that laudable design he hath in a more comfortable & full

satisfying planting of Jura & Yla wt more min[iste]rs in these 2 Islands

at least one in each such a valuable design I hope will be encouraged

by the Reverend Committy

As we saw previously, because of administrative incompetence on the part of the

Presbytery of Kintyre, the existing local catechists had still not received their salaries

for the previous year – indeed, Donald MacLean in Colonsay had already, unbeknown

to the authorities, left his position. The Royal Bounty Committee was impressed by

Shawfield’s promises, and recommended that the catechists’ salaries were to be

continued:

The Committee having Considered this Letter did Referr it to their

Subcommittee to take Care that in the Scheme they are to bring in, the

forsaid Islands be Competently Provided with Missionaries out of the

Royal Bounty, and appoints that a Letter of Thanks be wrote to

Shawfield, taking Notice of his Purpose abovementioned & intreating

him to Prosecute the same.

In 1730 the Synod of Argyll instructed the Presbytery of Kintyre to write to Shawfield

concerning their attempt to split the parish of Jura, an injunction repeated twice over

the next two years. However, no immediate progress was made, possibly because

Shawfield had other more pressing matters to worry about: he was then preoccupied

with building the north wing of Islay House near Bridgend to accommodate his large


72

family. Meanwhile, the Rev. Neill Campbell renewed his complaints, sending an

"Address and Representation" to the Synod showing:

his very great and greivous burden under so heavy, large and vastly

Discontiguous a Charge together with his Decay of Strength

Occationed throw his continual Toyll and fatigue both by Sea and

Land and his utter inability at any time of his Life or in the best

circumstances of his health to Discharge the Duty of a Pastor to the

said Parishes..

The Synod requested that the £27 sterling which had been granted by the Royal

Bounty Committee for a preaching catechist in Jura be renewed:

there being no parish in Scotland Equal to it for Extent of bounds and

Discontiguity nor any within our Synod encompassed with such

Dangerous seas and rapid Currents so that tho the Minister who for the

greater part of the year lives in Colonsay were never so healthy and

strong yet for most of the winter and spring quarters he can hardly sett

out with a boat nor tho he shoud now then be in capacity to come to

Jura is he able now to travel any other way than by mantaining a boat

and shippage which tho all other things answered (the smalness of his

stipends being litle more than 700 mrks) will not allow.

A new attempt to split the parish

Eventually the presbytery appealed to a higher authority: on 19 May 1735 it gave in a

petition to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland asking for legal assistance

in order to secure a manse, glebe and assistant for the minister of Jura and Colonsay.

The affair was put into the hands of Nicol Spence, the legal agent for the church, who

sent the Synod of Argyll a paper for the Presbytery of Kintyre; this paper was to be

subscribed to by the local heritors in order, finally, to split the parish in two.

It seems that later that year the Presbytery of Kintyre once more wrote to Nicol

Spence about the possibility of the new parish, sending with it a copy of their original

1724 report. In his reply, produced at a presbyterial meeting of 25 February 1736, he

asks for more up-to-date information about the rents, further details about the heritors,

and praises Shawfield for having "shown a good example to the rest of the heretors".

Malcolm MacNeill had hardly proved himself a particularly good landlord to the Rev.

Neill Campbell in the past, refusing to supply him with manse, glebe, increase of

stipend or even free transport to and from Colonsay. It was probably at the urging of

Daniel Campbell of Shawfield that he changed his tune.

Despite the long-standing problems the minister had with his local heritors, it seemed

that these two entrepreneurial landowners par excellence were willing to adopt a more

positive approach. Partly, we might expect, their newfound enthusiasm for fulfilling

their ecclesiastical duties arose from the realisation that otherwise it would be

exceptionally difficult for them to secure a successor for the ageing Rev. Neill

Campbell. At the same time, we should never forget the close relation between

material and spiritual progress in the eyes of many eighteenth-century improvers – a

relation which comes through clearly in the records of the SSPCK.


73

The willingness of Campbell of Shawfield to allocate a glebe and manse for the Rev.

Neill Campbell, at long last, might explain the minister’s finally appearing before the

presbytery on 21 April 1736. For at least a decade the presbytery had been attempting

to make the Rev. Neill deliver an exercise, in other words to expound a set text before

his colleagues: a viva, or perhaps a punishment, for apparently negligent ministers.

One and a half years after promising to deliver his exercise in six months time, the

Rev. Neill Campbell finally appeared, and – doubtless an example of dry ministerial

humour – was made to give a sermon on Romans 8:35: "Who shall separate us from

the Love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or

nakedness, or peril, or sword?"

A new landlord for Jura

Whatever ambitions MacNeill of Colonsay and Campbell of Shawfield had for the

parish of Jura, they were never to come to fruition. At a meeting of the presbytery on

20 April 1737, to which we shall return, the minister of Jura asked for his colleagues’

help as follows:

Mr. Niel also represented that Shawfield as proprietor of a part of Jura

sometime ago, signified his willingness, that a place should be

designed for a manse & Glebe, & that the last time he was in the Island

he was displeased it was not done, & Craved the Presbyteries advice.

In other words, the baillie of the island, Archibald Campbell of Sannaig, had done

nothing to obey his master’s orders and select a location for a manse and glebe in

Jura. The presbytery agreed to ask Shawfield for permission to make a visitation to

the island to search for a suitable site themselves. But whatever they might have done,

they were too late.

The previous year Archibald Campbell of Sannaig had succeeded his father, the

ninety-five year old John Campbell, inheriting his wadsets and his position as baillie

and forester of Jura under Daniel Campbell of Shawfield. Although, of course, he had

probably been acting baillie in place of his father for several decades, it may well be

that it was only now that he was able fully to put into practice his own ideas for the

island, introducing more commercially-oriented methods of running the estate. In

1739 Archibald Campbell bought the Shawfield estates in Jura. The Campbells of

Sannaig thus became the Campbells of Jura; their estates now had to pay their way.

Great changes were looming on the horizon. Desire to avoid the troubles and stress of

a regime under a landowner they knew only too well may explain why a good number

of Diùraich, both tenants and tacksmen, were willing to leave the island in the two

major emigrations of 1739 and 1754. As we have seen, the church seems to have little

place in Archibald Campbell’s plans for Jura, and once more the parish lapsed into

neglect.

The death of the catechist

James Moore, however, continued to receive eight pounds a year. Malcolm MacNeill

of Colonsay continued, of course, to look after his catechist, as can be seen from the

Royal Bounty Committee records from 28 November 1734, the first year he was

allowed his full salary once more:


74

James Muir Catechist at Colonsay, having drawn Bills for his Salary

for the year past, but sent no Certificate of his Service, being at a great

distance from the presbyterie Seat; The Committee granted warrand for

payment of his Salary resting, upon an obligement by Mr. McNiel son

to the Laird of Colonsay to procure proper Certificates.

However, Moore was to enjoy his full pay for scarcely two more years.

The Presbytery of Kintyre held a meeting in Campbeltown on 20 April 1737. After

they had finished, they were surprised by the hasty arrival of a colleague they had not

seen for a whole year. He had some sad news:

Mr. Niel Campbell having come to the place, it not being possible for

him to arrive sooner by reason of contrary winds, desired a Presby to

be called. The Presby being met he he [sic] represented to them, that

Mr John Logan preaching Catechist appointed by the Committee, Died

about the Close of March last, & that James Muir Catechist in

Colonsay died upon the 19th

Decr. last; He further represented that Mr.

Logan had appropriated the money owing him by the committee to pay

his board, Funeral Charges & other Debts to Donald Campbell of

Ardmenish.

The Presby appoints a letter to be written to the Committee apprising

them of Mr Logan’s death, bearing the time of this service, Diligence

& success & the money Due to Donald Campbell as also of James

Muir’s death.

John Logan had just arrived from Rannoch for a six-month stint supplying Jura when

he died. It was intended that he take up another post in the Isle of Harris after he

finished; but he never made it. As a replacement for Moore, Campbell suggested none

other than the previous catechist who had deserted his post nearly a decade earlier:

Mr Niel Campbell also represented that Donald Maclean formerly

examined by the presby & found qualified, is a proper person to succed

[sic] the said James Muir, & that the people are desirous to have him,

and craves that the presbytery would write to the Committee to this

effect; which they agreed to do.

SSPCK records, however, tell us that somebody else taught in Moore’s stead until

MacLean took over. On the 19 October 1737 a letter was read from the Presbytery of

Kintyre:

craving payment for Donald MacLean & also some allowance for one

Archibald McDuffie one of the schoolers in the said school who keept

up the said school from the time of James Muirs death till forsaid 1st

May last.

For replacing Moore, Donald MacLean was awarded six months of Moore’s salary:

two pounds from the SSPCK, which would recommend that the Royal Bounty


75

Committee give the same. For his trouble, the society gave Archibald McDuffie

twenty shillings sterling.

THE COLONSAY CATECHISTweb · his religious allegiance. The Rev. Robert Duncanson, minister of the...

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